time-hardened social prejudices to overcome, with no longing after the pageantry of royalty, we feel ourselves to be a people wholly free, and standing on the very threshold of a work too large to measure, and almost too appalling to contemplate.

The blood in the veins of every European nationality runs sluggishly and timidly. Thrones have no stability; tyrants no power. The people have wellnigh outgrown their worm-eaten tradition that kings are ordained of God, and he who wields the sceptre with the arrogance of earlier times does it at the peril of his life. The continent that once held the person of royalty sacred now simply endures a king who knows that he not only governs but is in his turn governed. The blood in the veins of America, on the other hand, leaps through the ruddy channel of life with all the force and promise of youth. We believe that we have a special mission; that the whole country is ours from the warm gulf to the frigid zone, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and that here, fired with simple faith in educated men, we shall be able, without the aid of royal favor, to make our own laws, watch over our own interests, and write our own history. If the Old World interferes, either by that strange neutrality which refuses help to the loyal while it supplies arms to the

disloyal, or by sending a wretched debauchee

to

turn our flank in Mexico, we have but one word of warning, -Hands off; America is neither forgetful of her friends nor afraid of her foes.

By slow degrees our geographical limits are widening. Within a few years we have put our seal upon the golden mountains of California and the rich plains of Texas. Lately the magnificent territory of the extreme northwest has been bought. It cannot be many years before that people who have resisted tyranny with wonderful bravery, who have at last hedged in within a wall of sharp bayonets the usurper and the adventurer, will knock loud for entrance into the Home of the Free. It cannot be long before we shall have that narrow belt of land that lies on the banks of the St. Lawrence and the shore of the lakes. For two generations it has been the asylum of the heroic black man who refused to bear the stripes of the overseer, and the black woman who denied her body to the lust of her master; and now, by the wonderful progress of events, it offers itself a hospital to the sick at heart, those arrogant heroes whose "dreams have faded all at length," and who find the air of free America too bracing for the slender life that remains after the fruitless struggle. Then, with the whole continent our own, we can march through the

ages, keeping step to the music of Justice, Morality, and Political Righteousness. Gentlemen, few nations have such heavy, glorious responsibilities as we. Republicanism is but just begun. It is a temple whose arching roof will sometime in the future offer its shelter and protection to the people of every clime. To-day, the poor of Europe may live content within the thatched cottage in political oblivion, while the favored and the wealthy sit beneath the gilded roof of power and shape laws to suit their tastes or caprices; but the hour shall yet come, how far off in the distance it may be none can tell, when the great heart and strong arm of the people of every nationality shall decree that there shall be no king to live in a palace, and no citizen so lowly that he can have no voice in making the laws that govern him, but when all the people shall come together beneath the same roof to be ruled each by the whole and the whole by each.

Standing, then, as we do, at the beginning of a new era, looking forward with large hope to a peaceful and glorious future, it is well for us to come together on this mighty anniversary to measure our strength and confess our weakness. knowledge with due gratitude the especial presence of that Providence which has led us along the weary road, guiding us guiding us in the day

We ac

constant and

time by the pillar of cloud that rose from the battle-field, and in the night season by the pillar of flame that formed the bivouac-fires of the army of the Republic. We should be unworthy citizens if we failed to recognize the hidden Hand that has guarded us, or forgot to speak of it in the midst of our universal festivities.

The particular elements of our nationality to which I desire to call your special attention are, first, the Southern Element, its nature, and its probable influence on the future.

The South has never been a help to the cause of Republicanism. The one incendiary element in our government, the element of caste, it has stood in bold contrast to that levelling and democratic influence which has been the boast and pride of the North. With a territory almost unparalleled for richness of soil; with long mountain ranges containing in large abundance every mineral which adds to the wealth or strength of society; with a climate favorable to the finest specimens of physical and moral manhood; with broad rivers that run through every valley of the region; with noble forests to supply every domestic and commercial need; with agricultural possibilities that would rouse the ambition of almost any people, with all this

in its favor, we are compelled to admit that the whole region is to-day practically unknown and undeveloped. The granite hills and sterile soil of New England, where niggardly nature gives only what she must, developed by the strong arm and active brain of freedom, have done more for the cause of civilization, more for the commercial welfare of the world, than all that vast territory that might have shaped the destinies, and controlled the government of the country. When, in the course of a few years, the political storm shall have subsided, and we come to explore and count the value of this region, we shall find a new argument against slavery, and a new cause for gratitude that we possess so rich a domain.

The wealth that lies hidden in the rocky caverns of the Alleghanies and in the fastnesses of the Cumberland range, calling on the thrift and enterprise of the new generation of young men, is beyond all calculation. Carry to the South, and awaken in the South, the same foresight, energy, genius and inventive power that have subdued the soil of the North, and before those who are now in middle life shall have gone to their rest, we shall find that one of the richest and best parts of America lies between the Ohio and the Gulf.