it will be neither unfit, nor distasteful to the proprieties of the 

 hour, for a moment to bring to mind. It is certain])- a matter 

 of congratulation, that upon the re-establishment of civil gov- 

 ernment, when the nation takes its place again unbroken 

 among the first powers of the world, it comes forth purified, 

 by the fires through which it has passed of that plague spot, 

 which, from the first, has been our mortification and our fear ; 

 that it presents to the world the grand spectacle of a pojmla- 

 tion of more than 30,000,000 of souls, each one of whom is 

 before the law the exact equal of each other one ; nay, fur- 

 ther, that we stand in Christendom with a fundamental and 

 constitutional declaration of that great law, which Loid 

 Brougham, many years ago, declared to be above all the en- 

 actments of human codes, M'ritten by the finger of God upon 

 men's hearts, that man cannot hold property in man ; while 

 proud and boastful England, in which human servitude long 

 existed, and by whose agency it was planted among our peo- 

 ple, has never yet, by legal enactment, forbidden slavery, ex- 

 cept in some of her far-off possessions. Within the limits of 

 the Biitish isle, there has never been a law abolishing or pro- 

 hibiting its existence. It ceased to be economical — and it 

 ceased to exist. 



Nor can we hesitate to see, with emotions of the highest 

 interest and satisfaction, that the years of strife and war have 

 developed the fact, that the people of the United States have 

 determined that there is a government, which must be pre- 

 served; that the great interests of civilization demand, that 

 we shall continue one people; that this community of States 

 is not a mere aggregation of atoms to be t^eparated and dis- 

 integrated at the will of aspiring and discontented men ; but 

 that within its true sphere, the goveraujent of the country 

 shall remain absolute and permanent. It is not well to try 

 to weigh life in the balance with political advantages and 

 political results ; it is not, therefore, well to make compari- 

 sons of the value of any result with the cost by which it 

 has bfccii purchased ; it is enough, if we fully realize and 



