immortal workers, and prosper the fortunes of
their living sons--and perpetuate the inspiration of their handiwork.

Two years ago, sir, I spoke some words in New York that caught the
attention of the North. As I stand here to reiterate, as I have done
everywhere, every word I then uttered--to declare that the sentiments I
then avowed were universally approved in the South--I realize that the
confidence begotten by that speech is largely responsible for my
presence here to-night. I should dishonor myself if I betrayed that
confidence by uttering one insincere word, or by withholding one
essential element of the truth. Apropos of this last, let me confess,
Mr. President, before the praise of New England has died on my lips,
that I believe the best product of her present life is the procession of
seventeen thousand Vermont Democrats that for twenty-two years,
undiminished by death, unrecruited by birth or conversion, have marched
over their rugged hills, cast their Democratic ballots and gone back
home to pray for their unregenerate neighbors, and awake to read the
record of twenty-six thousand Republican majority. May the God of the
helpless and the heroic help them, and may their sturdy tribe increase.

Far to the South, Mr. President, separated from this section by a
line--once defined in irrepressible difference, once traced in
fratricidal blood, and now, thank God, but a vanishing shadow--lies the
fairest and richest domain of this earth. It is the home of a brave and
hospitable people. There is centered all that can please or prosper
humankind. A perfect climate above a fertile soil yields to the
husbandman every product of the temperate zone. There, by night the
cotton whitens beneath the stars, and by day the wheat locks the
sunshine in its bearded sheaf. In the same field the clover steals the
fragrance of the wind, and tobacco catches the quick aroma of the rains.
There are mountains stored with exhaustless treasures; forests--vast and
primeval; and rivers that, tumbling or loitering, run wanton to the sea.
Of the three essential items of all industries--cotton, iron and
wood--that region has easy control. In cotton, a fixed monopoly--in
iron, proven supremacy--in timber, the reserve supply of the Republic.
From this assured and permanent advantage, against which artificial
conditions cannot much longer prevail, has grown an amazing system of
industries. Not maintained by human contrivance of tariff or capital,