It is often said that the principles of republicanism will fail when applied to large territories. Why?

The principles of local self-government in local matters, to which, as speedily as possible, we must return; the idea that that government is best which governs least, rigidly applied to the General Government; no taxation without representation; no union of Church and State; no privileged classes; perfect equality of all citizens in civil and political rights; universal elementary education, enforced, if need be; strict subordination of the military to the civil power, as soon as congressional representations and local State Governments are fully restored to the States lately in rebellion, — what reason exists, in the nature of things, now that the strange anomaly of slavery has been annihilated, why these principles should not apply to a hundred States as well as to thirteen or thirty? Republican institutions are not a failure. The wisdom of the Fathers is justified.

At the close of the last century, after success gave emphasis to the words of the Declaration, its echoes were heard in Europe. Everywhere the people stepped up on a wider field. Now that republican institutions here come forth so triumphantly from trial, a far grander effect in Europe may be looked for. Already, it seems as if some new drama were about to be exhibited on the stage

of the world's history. The closing of an old era, the opening of a new, is upon us. Old civilizations and future promise stand forth for all men to see. Wonderful medieval pageants, recalling the past magnificence of emperor and pope, have just been displayed at Pesth and Rome; while at Paris, all the mightiest rulers of the earth have assembled to look upon the products of earth's workers. The kings pay homage to the people, to the toiling millions, and recognize the royalty of labor. When the people shall universally comprehend this, their reign begins.

Among us, some men are so wedded to past forms as to be unable to see aught but danger in any change, regardless of its cause or obvious necessity, and would hamper the new nation with the old traditions; but life mocks at dead forms, and the vitality of our country, which so terrifies them, is its sure hope. At the Navy Yard at Charlestown, they will take you into an immense ship-house, and there show you a vessel upon the stocks, where it has stood for years. The work of preparing her for sea was long since abandoned; but there she stands, an object of interest to idle gazers, an excellent thing by which to learn how a ship looks when half-built, but, for all the practical purposes of a ship, as utterly useless, as if the noble trees, that gave their lives to

contribute the massive timbers that form her keel and shapely ribs, were still waving, in all their leafy splendor, along the slopes of rock-ribbed Katahdin. They have lost the life of the tree, and utterly missed the grander life of the ship. What idea of a ship would one have who should never see any ship but that? How utterly would the true idea of the ship, the full-rigged ship, spreading every sail, like some mighty bird poised over the water, an image of triumphant power, of all-conquering beauty, or scudding with bare poles before the angry waves, like a hunted deer, - fail of entering his imagination!

The "Ship of State" has furnished metaphor alike to poet and orator; but I have thought, ofttimes, that it was the long-housed ship on the stocks, and not the real child of the sea, after which they modelled. To ride out the storms of turbulent populations, to bear the passengers safe over the trackless sea; that is the end and object of the ship: therefore it is to the practical sailing qualities, not simply to the "constitutional" ribs, that the eyes and thoughts of the statesmen, the navigators, must be directed. How to keep the ship true to her course, how to avoid the rocks and reefs and lee-shores of politics, these are the problems. I know no other guides than the fixed stars of principle. They must

know well the heavenly landmarks who would navigate safely over unknown seas. When clouds and tempest obscure the stars, sad will it be for that nation whose pilots have not some compass by which to lay the line true to the pole. For republican statesmen, that compass is to be found alone in an innate, unalterable love of Liberty and Justice. Such pilots has the good Ship found in times past, nor, under God's guidance, shall she lack them in the days to come.