306 [Assembly 



government. We are one people — with a common origin ; our 

 interests, however diversified, are yet kindred and dependent ; 

 our history and our destiny are the same. While we understand 

 each other in this repect, there is no difficulty in upholding the 

 government. I am a Southern man by birth, by education, by 

 innumerable and indestructible ties ; my ashes will mingle with 

 Southern soil ; but my heart beats with exaltation, which I should 

 attempt in vain to express in words, when I survey the growth, 

 the prosperity, and the rising glories of this whole country. 

 Your resources, great as they are — your wealth, teeming as it is — 

 this magnificent display of mechanic art — none of this awakens 

 within me any jealous or unworthy feeling. I rejoice in your 

 prosperity — I would cheer you in the bright career which opens 

 before you ; all this constitutes a part of the power, the glory of 

 my country ; and I look forward to the day when, in the midst 

 of the great agricultural regions of the South, a varied industry 

 will appear to add new embellishments and new riches to a re- 

 gion for w'hich Providence has already done so much. Our 

 manufacturii:g establishments are multiplying, and will, I hope, 

 soon rival yours. My own State is making rapid progress in this 

 way. It is with this feeling that I greet you this evening — an 

 American citizen, addressing American citizens ! 



I desire the Union of these States to stand through all coming 

 time. On the occasion to which my honorable friend, the Presi- 

 dent, has referred, I said in the House of Representatives what I 

 am happy to say here : " I Jiave never looked to a destruction of 

 the government, as a remedy for existing evils. Rival States 

 would soon become belligerent States, and armies would be em- 

 ployed to decide the supremacy between them. The flag that 

 floats, to-day, over every part of our wide-spread country, from 

 the banks of the St. Lawrence, in full view of the British posses- 

 sions, to the shores of the Pacific, where it catches the eye of the 

 navigator returning from Asia, and from our ships, which bear 

 it upon all the waters of the earth, is known and honored as the 

 ensign of a great and powerful Republic. It is associated with 

 all the glories of our past history ; its folds glitter before the 

 eyes of mankind as the sign of hope and universal freedom ; and 

 I trust that it will forever, fly over States free, properous, and 



