The Liberator

MISCELLANEOUS.

From the Salem Register.

MR. ADAMS' ORATION AT NEWBURY-PORT.

We are informed by a friend who was present, that the Oration delivered by Ex-President Adams at Newburyport, on the 4th, was exceedingly interesting, forcible and eloquent. After commenting at some length upon the Declaration of Independence, and analyzing its general principles, he proceeded to speak of the Union of the States, and in this part of his discourse went into an acute examination of the modern doctrine of State Sovereignty, and in a strain of the most pungent sarcasm, stripped to the skin and lashed to blood the men (was it possible that they were Americans by birth?) who had talked of calculating the value of the Union. 'Calculate the value of the Union!' he said—'how, by what arithmetic, by what rule of proportion? Calculate the value of maternal love, and the domestic ties—calculate the value of the social affections, and the sympathies of life—calculate the value of religious principles and Christian hopes—calculate the value of the blessings of Almighty God,—and you will then have the elements with which to compute the value of the Union.'— This led him to speak of the dangers which were apprehended in reference to the future integrity of the Union, and especially to the danger from discussion at the north on the subject of slavery. On this point he expended his full strength. He took the ground that there was no danger from this quarter—that free and full discussion was the safety-valve, which the high pressure of slavery in our system rendered necessary, to keep the boiler from bursting—that it was a right which no freeman would relinquish, to discuss the right and wrong of this and all other questions; and in the fearless exercise of this right, he went on to speak in his own strong, decided, energetic manner, of the sublime merits of slavery, giving it as his opinion, founded not only on the laws of human progress, but on the express predictions of God's word, that it must and would be abolished, and enjoining it as an imperative duty on his countrymen, to do what they could to bring about that result. During this part of his Address, (which formed the principal topic,) he was listened to with the profoundest attention, and was occasionally interrupted by bursts of applause. We shall no doubt soon see this discourse in print. and shall then be able to lay before our readers more fully the views of this great man on a subject which is exciting at present such a deep and universal interest.