will protect us from the iron bond of tyranny forever. They are the conserving elements, the saline qualities—if I may so term them—which retain the healthful energies and the youthful life of nations. And, without these, the people, in a popular government, while retaining the forms of freedom, are nothing more than a band of idiots, shouting, with insane frenzy, around the cap of liberty; and the rulers of such a people stand before men and the world pretenders, impostors, and shams!
May the might of manhood, the healthful, quickening, vital influences of honest commerce, and national intercommunication, with the force of law and the Divine Providence, ever preserve this rising commonwealth from these disastrous happenings and these deadly results.
The aim and intent of the words I have spoken this day, fellow-citizens, have been, I trust, made clear and plain. I have endeavored to show that Ave, as a nation, ought to render our contribution of good and blessing to mankind; and I have aimed to point out some of the means by which we may meet this duty. Two things, I think, may be seen through all this subject with clearness and distinctness,—that is, that energy and self-reliance are two prime, most important agencies in working out and fulfilling a nation's work and mission. For it is with the nation as with the man: when the materials are at hand, the individual must employ his own hands and use them. No one else but himself can do it for the man, none else for the nation. All the instrumentalities for large
