coming into the harmonious understanding that this is the land for the white man, and that whatever elements there are to disturb its present peace or irritate the passions of its possessors, will in the end, and that end will come before long, pass away, ineffectual in any way to disturb the harmony of, or endanger the stability of this great Union.

It is under the influence of reflections like these that I thank God here to-day, more fervently than ever, that I live in so great a country as this, and that my lot has been cast in it, not before the period when political society was to be organized, nor yet in that distant period when it is to collapse and fall into ruin, but that I live in the very day and hour when political society is to be effectually organized throughout the entire continent. We seem here, and now for the first time, to be conscious of that high necessity which compels every state in the Union to be, not separate and isolated, but one part of the American republic. We see and feel more than ever, when we come up here, that fervent heat of love and attachment to the region in which our lot is cast, that will not suffer the citizens of Maine, the citizens of South Carolina, the citizens of Texas, or the citizens of Wisconsin or Minnesota to be aliens to, or enemies of, each other, but which, on the other hand, compels them all to be members of one great political family. Aye, and we see now how it is that while society is convulsed with rivalries and jealousies between native and foreign born in our Atlantic cities and on our Pacific coast, and tormented with the rivalries and jealousies produced by difference of birth, of language, and of religion, here, in the central point of the republic, the German, and the Irishman, and the Italian, and the Frenchman, the Hollander and the Norwegian, becomes in spite of himself, almost completely in his own day, and entirely in his own children, an American citizen. We see the unity, in other words, that constitutes, and compels us to constitute, not many nations, not many peoples, but one nation and one people only.

Valetudinarians of the north have been in the habit of seeking the sunny skies of the south to restore their wasting frames under consumption; and invalids of the south have been accustomed to seek the skies of Italy for the same relief. Now you see the valetudinarians of the whole continent, from the frozen north and the burning south, resort to the sources of the Mississippi for an atmos

phere which shall restore them to health. Do you not see and feel here that this atmosphere has another virtue-that when men from Maine, and from Carolina, and from Mississippi, and from New Hampshire, and from England and Ireland, and Scotland, from Germany and from all other portions of the world come up here, the atmosphere becomes the atmosphere not only of health, but of liberty and freedom? Do we not feel when we come up here, that we have not only found the temple and the shrine of freedom, but that we have come into the actual living presence of the goddess of freedom herself? Once in her presence, we see that no less capacious temple could be fit for the worship that is her due. I wish, my fellow citizens, that all my associates in public life could come up here with me, and learn by experience, as I have done, the elevation and serenity of soul which pervades the people of the great northwest. It is the only region of the United States in which I find fraternity and mutual charity, fully developed. Since I first set foot on the soil of the valley of the Upper Mississippi, I have met men of all sects and of all religions; men of the republican party and men of the democratic party, and of the American party, and I have not heard one reproachful word, one intolerant or disdainful sentiment; I have seen that you can differ, and yet not disagree. I have seen that you can love your parties and the statesmen of your choice, and yet love still more the country and its rulers; the people, the sovereign people; not the squatter sovereigns scattered widecast and roving in distant and remote territories which you are never to enter, and so devised that they may be sold, and that the supreme court of the United States may abolish sovereignty and the sovereigns both together. You love the sovereignty that you possess yourselves, in which every man is his own sovereign, the popular sovereignty that belongs to me and the popular sovereignty that belongs to you; the equal popular sovereignty that belongs to every other man who is under the government and protection of the United States. Under the influence of such sentiments and feelings as these, I scarcely know how to act or speak, when I come before you at the command of the republican people of Minnesota as a republican. I feel that if we could be but a little more indulgent a little more patient with each other, and a little more charitable, all the grounds on which we differ would disappear and pass away, just as popular sovereignty is passing away; and let us all, though we cannot confess ourselves

to be all republicans, at least agree that we all are above all parties -American citizens. I see here, moreover, how it is, that in spite of sectional and personal ambition, the form and body and spirit of this nation organized itself and consolidated itself out of the equilibrium of irrepressible and yet healthful political counterbalancing forces, and how out of that equilibrium it produced just exactly that one thing which the interests of this continent and of mankind require should be developed here—and that is, a federal republic of separate republican or democratic states. I see here how little you and I, and those who are wiser and better and greater than you or I, have done, and how little they can do to produce the requisite political condition for the people of this continent, the condition of a free people. I see that, while we seem to ourselves to have been trying to do much and to do everything, and while many fancy that they have done a great deal, yet what we have been doing, what we now are doing, what we shall hereafter do, and what we and those who may come after us shall continue to be doing, is just exactly what was necessary to be done, whether we knew it or not, for the interests of humanity throughout the world, and therefore was certain to be done, because necessity is only another expression or name for the higher law. God ordains that what is useful to be done shall be done. When I survey American society as it is developing fully and perfectly here, I see that it is doing what the exigencies of political society throughout the world have at last rendered it necessary to be done. Society tried for six thousand years how to live and improve and perfect itself under monarchical and aristocratic systems of government, while practising a system of depredation and slavery on each other. The result has been all over the world a complete and absolute failure. At last, at the close of the last century, the failure was discovered, and a revelation was made of the necessity of a system to which henceforth men should cease to enslave each other, and should govern themselves.

Nowhere, in Africa, Asia, or in Europe, was there any open field where this great new work of the organization of a political society under a more auspicious system of government, could be attempted. They were all occupied. This great and unoccupied continent furnished the very theatre that was necessary; and to it came all the bold, and the free, and the brave men throughout the world, who feel and know that necessity, and who have the courage, the manhood, and

the humanity to labor to produce this great organization. Providence set apart this continent for the work, and, as I think, set apart and designated this particular locality for the place whence shall go forth continually the ever-renewing spirit which shall bring the people of all other portions of the continent up to a continual advance in the establishment of the system. I may make myself better understood by saying, that until the beginning of the present century, men had lived the involuntary subjects of political government, and that the time had come when mankind could no longer consent to be so governed by force. The time had come when men were to live voluntary citizens and sovereigns themselves of the states which they possessed, and that is the principle of the government established here. It has only one vital principle. All others are resolved into it. That one principle-what is it? It is the equality of every man who is a member of the state to be governed. If there be not absolute political equality then some portion of the people are governed by force, and are not voluntary citizens; and whenever any portion of the people are governed by force, then you are carried so far backward again toward the old system of involuntary citizenship, or a government by kings, lords, and standing armies. This was the great necessity, not of the people of the United States alone-it was not even the original conception of the people of the United States that a republican government was to be established for themselves alone, but the establishment of the republican system of the United States of America was only bringing out and reducing to actual practice the ideas and opinions which men had already formed, all over the civilized world. If you will refer to the action of our forefathers, you will find that while they did labor, as they might well labor, to secure this government in its republican form for themselves and their posterity, yet they were conscious that they were erecting it as a model of refuge for the people of every nation, kindred and tongue under heaven. The old continental congress of 1787 declared that the interest of the United States was forever the interest of human nature, and that it was the political redemption of human nature that was to be worked out on the continent of North America; and, as I have said, it is to be brought to its perfection here in the valley of the Mississippi.

The framers of the republic conceived this necessity-they assumed this high responsibility. They never could have done so, except VOL. IV.

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for the crisis of the revolution, which kindled an unknown fire of patriotism within the bosom of the people and enabled them for a brief period to clevate themselves up above temporary and ephemeral interests and prejudices, and to rise to the great test of organizing and constituting a free and purely popular government. The people understood the great principle on which it was to be founded-the political equality of the whole people; and that they did so understand it you will see in the fact that in the Declaration of Independence they lay the foundations of the great republic on the great truth that all men are created equal, and have inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But it was not the good fortune of our fathers to be able to find full and ample materials, all of the right kind, for the erection of the temple of liberty, which they constructed. Providence has so ordered it that uniformly perfect materials for any edifice which the human mind is required to devise, and the human hand to construct, cannot be found any where. If you propose to build a lime-stone house here, you may excavate the ground on which it is to be placed and take from the quarry the needed rocks and lay them all away in their proper places in the foundation and walls and vaulted roof; but other materials besides the lime-stone enter into the noblest structure you can make. There must be some lime, and some sand, and some iron, and some wood, and one must combine perfect with imperfect materials to make human structure. Even the founders of a great republic like this, wishing and intending to place it on the principle of the equality of man, had to take such materials as they found. They had to take society as it was, in which some were free and some were slaves, and to form a Union in which some were free states and some were slave states. They had the ideal before them, but they were unable to perfect it all at once. What did they do? They did as the architect does who raises a structure of stone and lime, and sand, and wood, and iron; where there is a weakness of material. and where the strength of the edifice would be impaired by it, he applies braces, and props, and bulwarks, and buttresses to strengthen and fortify so as to make the weak part combine with, and be held together in solid connection with the firm and strong. That is what our fathers intended to do, and what they did do, when they framed knowe federal government. Seeing this element of slavery, which they

any

'd not eliminate, they said, "We will take care that it shall not