on may be called a republic, and yet be not
free--_Wherever centralization exists, there the nation has either
sold or lent, either alienated or delegated its sovereignty_; and
wherever this is done, the nation has a master--and he who has a master
is of course not his own master. Power may be centralized in many--the
centralization by and by will be concentrated in few, as in ancient
Venice, or in one, as in France at the time of the "_Uncle_," some
forty years ago, and again in France, now that the "_Nephew_" has
his bloody reign for a day.

Yes, gentlemen, if that generation of devoted patriots who achieved the
Independence of the United States, had merely changed the old master for
a new one with the name of an Emperor or a King, or of an omnipotent
President, your country were now just something like Brazil or Mexico,
or the Republic of South America, all of them independent, as you know,
and all except Brazil even Republics, and all rich with nature's
blessings, and offering a new home to those who fly from the oppression
of the Old World--and yet all of them old before they were young, and
decrepit before they were strong. Had the founders of your country's
Independence followed this direction which led the rest of America
astray, Cincinnati would be a hamlet yet as it was in Jacob Wetzel's
time; and Ohio, instead of being a first-rate star in the constellation
of your Republic, would be an appendage of neighbouring Eastern
States--a not yet explored desert, marked in the map of America only by
lines of northern latitude and western longitude.

The people, a real sovereign; your institutions securing real freedom,
because founded on the principles of self-government; union to secure
national independence and the position of a power on earth; and all
together, having no master but God; omnipotence not vested in any man,
in any assembly,--and an open field to every honest exertion--because
civil, political, and religious liberty is the common benefit to all,
not limited but by itself (that is, by the unseen, but not unfelt,
influence of self-given law); that is the key of the living wonder which
spreads before my eyes.

Let me recall to your memory a curious fact. It is just a hundred years
ago, that the first trading house upon the Great Miami was built by
daring English adventurers, at a place later known as Laramie's Store,
then the territory of the Twigtwee Indians. The trade house was
destroyed by Frenchmen