le of Europe in national development, has rapidly
caught up with them. Forty years ago we were far behind all other
nations in national feeling and love of one another. Today we are no
longer behind them.

Our fellow-countrymen from the Rhine, from the Alpine lake and the
Saxon Elbe are attached to one another in affectionate sympathy, not
only when they meet abroad, but also at home. A united people has been
created in a remarkably short time. This proves that the medical cure
which we employed, although it was of blood and iron, lanced only a
sore, which had come to a head long ago, and that it gave us speedy
comfort and good health. God grant that the cure will be lasting and
subject to no change. How far reaching it is has been proved by the
testimonials which I have received since I gave up my office. They
have come from all people,--from Baden, Bavaria, Saxony, Suabia,
Hessen, and from all the districts of Prussia outside the provinces of
Frederick the Great. These entirely voluntary manifestations, which
were arranged by no one, and which not infrequently came to me at
rather inconvenient and inopportune times, have impressed me with the
existence of national harmony. Every one of them has given pleasure to
my patriotic heart, and has borne witness to a common feeling existing
in all German races--this much I wished to say concerning the
stability of the political and national union of your province today.

We often sing "Firm is the stand of the faithful guards on the Rhine,"
but they are standing equally firm at the Warthe and the Vistula. We
cannot spare an acre of land in either direction, for the sake of
principle if for nothing else. The previous speaker referred to the
attempts which had been made, as a result of the movement of 1848, to
shake loose the union in which we were then living in Prussia and
Germany, and to disregard our boundary lines. These attempts of
satisfying the wishes of our Polish neighbors ended with the action
of the Prussian general von Colomb, who closed the gates of Posen
to the Polish troops which, in response to promises made in Berlin,
had been raised under the Prussian General von Willisen. We were
obliged to conquer with Prussian troops, and in a bloody war, the
army of the insurgents who fought bravely and honorably. I wish to
add that even that war was not fought with the Polish people as such,
but with the Polish nobility and their following. I remember speaking
to some P