But it may be asked whether with this popular basis and its grand results, we have not the same greed for gain, ambition to excel, love of rule, desire for intrigue, and play of unruly prejudice, jealousy, and passion which have made the history of other nations tragical even to their decline and fall. There can be but one answer to this question. Intelligence and morality are the only conservative elements of a republic. While we remain an intelligent, moral people, who shall compete with us in our abundant harvests, our rich balances of trade, our increase in commerce and expansion of labor, our influx of precious metals, and our inexhaustible mines of coal, iron, copper, gold, and silver. Our exportations and importations, our marvelous immigration, our stupendous inter-state communications and their incomes and outgoes by rail, canal, lake, river, and sea, our inventive faculty, with its miracles of manufacture, and above all and beyond all, our movement westward from ever-renewing centres of a restless population, which in a century has added fifty millions of souls to our active energies, are unparalleled in the history of nations. What is the vitalizing and ennobling principle of our civilization, and the warrant for its preservation? That warrant is in the virtue, schools, and intelligence of the whole people, who, receiving their broad inheritance endowed in the eons past by geology and its changes with an opulence of fertility and wealth, have transmuted it beyond the dreams of alchemy into manifold and magnificent values, and spread their domain since 1790 from a little strip along the Atlantic into continental proportions, reaching from sea That principle of civilization is our representative system, which strikes no name, however humble or dependent, from the peerage of the American Republic. to sea. England may boast of her rule in Asia, Africa, and Ireland, and proudly echo the praise which her laureate lavishes on her, as a land of settled government, of just and old renown, and of freedom broadening slowly from precedent to precedent; but she has no popular representation in her Parliament founded on the equal rights of all the people. It was left to her American colonies, a century ago, in this new hemisphere, by a written constitution, to erect a muniment, high and splendid, around the temple of liberty, and to guard it with a unity and force which the division and variety made by mountain and river, and the strong passions of hostile armies, could neither sever nor overcome. Within that muniment, our composite society is assured of protection, stability, and progress. In rearing it every one has builded over against his own house, as in the days of dismantled Jerusalem; so that through the whole mass of our living people, freedom broadens decennially, not from precedent to precedent, but like the bole of the oak, by its inner growth drawn from the soil, sun, and sky, into an intense robust life, which has defied the tempests of the past century, and under God's guidance will defy the storms of centuries to come! THE MUNIMENTS OF PUBLIC LIBERTY. 699 It is nearly four hundred years since Columbus set in the forehead of his time the jewels of Isabella, the Catholic. The people whom she ruled saw the sails of his caravel expand under favoring breezes from the Andalusian strand, to find a new continent, and found a new empire! Then the red man held undisputed barbaric sway over the vast regions now embraced within our limits. Here, since, arose institutions whose attractive forces created, from out of the loins of the Old World, a nation of freemen. Since then, like the oak, our greatness has expanded, ring on ring. We have spread our boughs from sea to sea! Our country, with its institutions of benevolence and learning, its wealth, splendor, commerce, and liberties, has become the cynosure of all eyes and the refuge of all lands. It is a fitting tribute to our position, history, and freedom, that the genius of republican France is, as we write, sending to us for exaltation within the waters of our great metropolis, the image of Liberty lifting up a lighted torch, as a beacon of promise and symbol of enlightenment to all who traverse the broad seas and seek our asylum. It is our duty to see that the emblem loses nothing of its splendid significance. May it never be said to us, as De Tocqueville said to France : "Are your principles losing their force by your example? Does your application of them lead the world to doubt their truth? Are your regenerating principles - the glory and most precious portion of your history-leading the nations to a happier future, or dragging them down after you in moral degradation ?" With vestal vigilance let these principles be ever watched! We need not repair to the golden urns of other skies to re-illume the light which shines like the stars upon our ensign. The youthful, exultant, and defiant spirit of Freedom here enshrined and consecrated fills the land with a common sentiment concerning the Republic, which is the essence of patriotism, and will shed around the splendid gift of our sister republic of the Old World, not the lurid glare which leads astray, but an aureole "only not divine," whose effulgence will make glad the struggling people of all lands, aspiring to a better future. MAP OF THE UNITED STATES, SHOWING THE OLD STATES SHADED DARK; FLORIDA, AND ALL THE VAST TERRITORY WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, ACQUIRED BY THE GOVERNMENT WHILE UNDER DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION, SHADED LIGHT. INDEX. Abolitionists, their motto, 50. Cause of proscription of, 51. tion of the preamble of the Abolition of slavery, constitu- office by Gen. Sheridan, 544. cate of measures to allay Con- Member committee of thirty- Alcorn, James L., Republican | Anderson, Thomas L., member Elected governor, 1869, 530. His idea of state sovereignty, Aldrich, Cyrus, member Thirty- sixth Congress, 90. 51. As minister to Great Britain Adams, J. H., member of South Carolina treaty commis- Adams, John, causes of his de- Course in France respecting Adams Samuel, statue of, 26. seizure of, 146. Alabama, convention and or- dinance of secession, 115-116. Treaty commission, 1860, 116. Part of third military district Registration in, 513. Constitution, provisions of, Conditions of admission of, to Ames, Adelbert, service in as- Senator from Mississippi, 1870, 530. Elected governor of Missls- Course as governor of Mis- Amnesty proposed by Garrett Classes excepted, 346, 347. Henry Winter Davis' plan of, President Johnson's plan of, Vicissitudes of the question Effect of delay of, in the Incompleteness of, 597. Position of Mr. Blaine re- Established by public senti- Anderson, Robert, abandon- ment of Ft. Moultrie and oc- Thirty-sixth Congress, 96. Appomattox, surrender at, 578. tion the original object of The law of 1882 respecting Archer, Stevenson, member Delegates sent to Southern Campaign in 1862, 174. New state government of, re- President Lincoln's plan for Ordinance of secession an- Destitution of her people in Amnesty act of, 439. Part of the fourth military Provisional legislature of, Registration in, 534. Convention and constitution, 534. Fraud at ratification of con- Surrendered by military com- Legislation of, 1869, respect- Government of, 1868-1875, 535- Constitution of, 1874, 540. Congress for repeal of laws Arrests, arbitrary, 223, 224. Ridge, 174. Ashley, James M., calls up thir- ment of President Johnson, Thirty-sixth Congress, 94. President Garfield, 76. Extent of operations for re- Attorneys, iron-clad oath ex- Baker, E. D., disposition toward Senator Thirth-sixth Con- gress, 72. Military service and death at office by Gen. Hancock, 549. Banishment, enacted by the Confederate Congress, 246. establishing system of, 141. Secretary Chase's suggestions, Origin of the system, 142. Issue of, secured by United Banks of issue, power of states In Shenandoah Valley, 183. Banks, Nath'l P., general order | of, Feb. 13, 1864, 427. Barnwell, Robert W., member of military league commis- for governorship of Arkan- Baxter, Richard, persecution Bayard, James A., senator in Bayard, Thomas A., member of Remarks by him in the com- Member of electoral commis- Proposition in the electoral erate general in the attack Beecher Henry Ward, views states to their federal rela- Bell, John, presidential candi- specting utility of oath- the committee of thirteen, 80. Thirty-sixth Congress, 75. Thirty-sixth Congress, 89. the President to suspend the Birney, James G., anti-slavery Counsel for President John- Speech before the electoral Counsel representing Mr. Til- Blackburn, J. S. C., speech of, 1864, to lay the Brown sub- Advocates in conference Second visit of, to Richmond Blount, William, impeachment Bocock, Thomas S., attempt to Member Thirty-sixth Con- Parliamentary skill of, 74. Bonham, Milledge L., member Governor of South Carolina, Boozer, Lemuel, elected Lieut.- Botts, John M., leader of mod- erate Republicans in Vir- Bouligney, J. E., member Thir- Boutwell, George S., discusses |