overnment what it
is.

Gentlemen, the free nature of our institutions, and the popular form of
those governments which have come down to us from the Rock of Plymouth,
give scope to intelligence, to talent, enterprise, and public spirit,
from all classes making up the great body of the community. And the
country has received benefit in all its history and in all its
exigencies, of the most eminent and striking character, from persons of
the class to which my friend before me belongs. Who will ever forget
that the first name signed to our ever-memorable and ever-glorious
Declaration of Independence is the name of John Hancock, a merchant of
Boston? Who will ever forget that, in the most disastrous days of the
Revolution, when the treasury of the country was bankrupt, with unpaid
navies and starving armies, it was a merchant,--Robert Morris of
Philadelphia,--who, by a noble sacrifice of his own fortune, as well as
by the exercise of his great financial abilities, sustained and
supported the wise men of the country in council, and the brave men of
the country in the field of battle? Nor are there wanting more recent
instances. I have the pleasure to see near me, and near my friend who
proposed this sentiment, the son of an eminent merchant of New England
(Mr. Goodhue), an early member of the Senate of the United States,
always consulted, always respected, in whatever belonged to the duty and
the means of putting in operation the financial and commercial system of
the country; and this mention of the father of my friend brings to my
mind the memory of his great colleague, the early associate of Hamilton
and of Ames, trusted and beloved by Washington, consulted on all
occasions connected with the administration of the finances, the
establishment of the treasury department, the imposition of the first
rates of duty, and with every thing that belonged to the commercial
system of the United States,--George Cabot, of Massachusetts.

I will take this occasion to say, Gentlemen, that there is no truth
better developed and established in the history of the United States,
from the formation of the Constitution to the present time, than
this,--that the mercantile classes, the great commercial masses of the
country, whose affairs connect them strongly with every State in the
Union and with all the nations of the earth, whose business and
profession give a sort of nationality to their character,--that no class
of men among us, from th