encroachments upon natural rights,--nay, I might add, inanimate
nature, for it also exhibits a continual warfare for supremacy. Plants
of the same kind, as well as trees, do not stop their vigorous growth
because they overshadow their kind; but, on the contrary, flourish
with greater vigor as the more weak and delicate decline and die.
Those of different species are at perpetual warfare. The sweetest rose
tree will sicken and waste on the near approach of the noxious
bramble, and the most promising fields of wheat yield a miserable
harvest if choked up with tares and thistles. The elements themselves
war together, and the angels of heaven have met in fierce encounter.
The principle of self-preservation is co-extensive with creation; and
when by education we make character and moral worth a part of
ourselves, we guard these possessions with more watchful zeal than
life itself, and would go farther for their protection. When one finds
himself avoided in society, his friends shunning his approach, his
substance wasting, his wife and children in want around him, and
traces all his misfortunes and misery to the slanderous tongue of the
calumniator, who, by secret whisper or artful innuendo, has sapped and
undermined his reputation, he must be more or less than man to submit
in silence.

The indiscriminate and frequent appeal to arms, to settle trivial
disputes and misunderstandings, cannot be too severely censured and
deprecated. I am no advocate of such duelling. But in cases where the
laws of the country give no redress for injuries received, where
public opinion not only authorizes, but enjoins resistance, it is
needless and a waste of time to denounce the practice. It will be
persisted in as long as a manly independence, and a lofty personal
pride in all that dignifies and ennobles the human character, shall
continue to exist. If a man be smote on one cheek in public, and he