ELECTION SERMON.
A
SERMON
DELIVERED BEFORE
HIS EXCELLENCY LEVI LINCOLN
GOVERNOR,
HIS HONOR THOMAS L. WINTHROP
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR,
THE HON. COUNCIL, THE SENATE, AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS,
ON THE DAY OF
GENERAL ELECTION,MAY 28, 1828.
BY JAMES WALKER.
Boston:
DUTTON AND WENTWORTH, PRINTERS TO THE STATE.
1828.
IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, May 28, 1828.
Ordered, That Messrs. Thayer ofBraintree, Goodwin of Charlestown, and Fuller of Boston, be a Committee to wait on the Rev. James Walker, and present to him the thanks ofthis House, for the Discourse delivered by him this day, before theExecutive and the Legislature, and to request a copy of the same for thepress.
Attest,
P. W. WARREN, Clerk
SERMON.
EXODUS, XVIII, 21.
Thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such asfear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place suchover them to be rulers.
The public business, the excitements of the day, and all thecircumstances in which we are assembled, make it imperative on me to bebrief, and almost entirely occasional. You have not come here preparedto sit down and listen to a learned discussion, fearfully long, andfearfully dull; and I do not mean you shall be troubled with one. Ionly ask your attention, while I throw out a few hints on theresponsibility the people of this country are under, to take care thatthe men whom they raise to authority, are honest and capable.
In those countries where the accident of birth determines who shallrule over them, the people are not responsible for the character andcapacities of the men in power. It is true, a corrupt administration isa national calamity in all governments; but in ours it is at the sametime a national calamity, and a national sin. From the freedom andfrequency of our elections, our public men exist but in the breath ofthe people; and if power is put into unworthy hands, or suffered toremain there an hour after it is abused, the people are responsible. Itis a fair inference that the whole people have degenerated. It wouldnot be fair to judge the morals of the people of England, or of France,by the morals of the court; but it is perfectly fair to judge themorals of the people of this country by the morals of the men, whomthey elevate by their voluntary suffrages to represent the majesty ofthe nation. It is of unspeakable importance, that we should feel thatwe are implicated, in a manner in which no other people are in thecharacter of our rulers and the duties resulting from this peculiarityof our co