resound through the universe.
H. Grattan.


XVIII.

THE PRESS AND THE UNION.

It were good for us to remember that nothing which tends, however
distantly, however imperceptibly, to hold these States together, is beneath
the notice of a considerate patriotism. It were good to remember that some
of the institutions and devices by which former confederacies have been
preserved, our circumstances wholly forbid us to employ. The tribes of
Israel and Judah came up three times a year to the holy and beautiful city,
and united in prayer and praise and sacrifice, in listening to that
thrilling poetry, in swelling that matchless song, which celebrated the
triumphs of their fathers by the Red Sea, at the fords of Jordan, and on
the high places of the field of Barak's victory. But we have no feast of
the Passover, or of the Tabernacles, or of the Commemoration. The States of
Greece erected temples of the gods by a common contribution, and worshiped
in them. They consulted the same oracle; they celebrated the same national
festival: mingled their deliberations in the same amphictyonic and
subordinate assemblies, and sat together upon the free benches to hear
their glorious history read aloud, in the prose of Heroditus, the poetry of
Homer and of Pindar. We have built no national temples but the Capitol; we
consult no common oracle but the Constitution. We can meet together to
celebrate no national festival. But the thousand tongues of the
press--clearer far than the silver trumpet of the jubilee,--louder than the
voice of the herald at the games,--may speak and do speak to the whole
people, without calling them from their homes or interrupting them in their