k, "The Life of John of Barneveld."

XX.

1868-1869. AEt. 54-55.

VISIT TO AMERICA.--RESIDENCE AT NO. 2 PARK STREET, BOSTON.--ADDRESS ON
THE COMING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.--ADDRESS ON HISTORIC PROGRESS AND
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.--APPOINTED MINISTER TO ENGLAND.

In June, 1868, Mr. Motley returned with his family to Boston, and
established himself in the house No. 2 Park Street. During his residence
here he entered a good deal into society, and entertained many visitors
in a most hospitable and agreeable way.

On the 20th of October, 1868, he delivered an address before the Parker
Fraternity, in the Music Hall, by special invitation. Its title was "Four
Questions for the People, at the Presidential Election." This was of
course what is commonly called an electioneering speech, but a speech
full of noble sentiments and eloquent expression. Here are two of its
paragraphs:--

"Certainly there have been bitterly contested elections in this
country before. Party spirit is always rife, and in such vivid,
excitable, disputatious communities as ours are, and I trust always
will be, it is the very soul of freedom. To those who reflect upon
the means and end of popular government, nothing seems more stupid
than in grand generalities to deprecate party spirit. Why,
government by parties and through party machinery is the only
possible method by which a free government can accomplish the
purpose of its existence. The old republics of the past may be said
to have fallen, not because of party spirit, but because there was
no adequate machinery by which party spirit could develop itself
with facility and regularity.

"And if our Republic be true to herself, the future of the human
race is assured by our example. No sweep of overwhelming armies, no
ponderous treatises on the rights of man, no hymns to liberty,
though set to martial music and resounding with the full diapason of
a million human throats, can exert so persuasive an influence as
does the spectacle of a great republic, occupying a quarter of the
civilized globe, and governed quietly and sagely by the people
itself."

A large portion of this address is devoted to the proposition that it is
just and reasonable to pay our debts rather than to repudiate them, and
that the nation is as much bound to be honest as is the individual. "It
is an awful thing," he says, "that this should be a question at all," but
i