itution to your
city might be said, with little change, in respect to every other part
of the country. Its benefits are not exclusive. What has it left undone,
which any government could do, for the whole country? In what condition
has it placed us? Where do we now stand? Are we elevated, or degraded,
by its operation? What is our condition under its influence, at the very
moment when some talk of arresting its power and breaking its unity? Do
we not feel ourselves on an eminence? Do we not challenge the respect of
the whole world? What has placed us thus high? What has given us this
just pride? What else is it, but the unrestrained and free operation of
that same Federal Constitution, which it has been proposed now to
hamper, and manacle, and nullify? Who is there among us, that, should he
find himself on any spot of the earth where human beings exist, and
where the existence of other nations is known, would not be proud to
say, I am an American? I am a countryman of Washington? I am a citizen
of that republic, which, although it has suddenly sprung up, yet there
are none on the globe who have ears to hear, and have not heard of it;
who have eyes to see, and have not read of it; who know any thing, and
yet do not know of its existence and its glory? And, Gentlemen, let me
now reverse the picture. Let me ask, who there is among us, if he were
to be found to-morrow in one of the civilized countries of Europe, and
were there to learn that this goodly form of government had been
overthrown, that the United States were no longer united, that a
death-blow had been struck upon their bond of union, that they
themselves had destroyed their chief good and their chief honor,--who is
there whose heart would not sink within him? Who is there who would not
cover his face for very shame?

At this very moment, Gentlemen, our country is a general refuge for the
distressed and the persecuted of other nations. Whoever is in affliction
from political occurrences in his own country looks here for shelter.
Whether he be republican, flying from the oppression of thrones, or
whether he be monarch or monarchist, flying from thrones that crumble
and fall under or around him, he feels equal assurance, that, if he get
foothold on our soil, his person will be safe, and his rights will be
respected.

And who will venture to say, that, in any government now existing in the
world, there is greater security for persons or property than in that of
th