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and less by others — and should divide opinions, as to 

 measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is 

 not a difference of principle We have called by dif- 

 ferent names, brethreu of the same ])riiiciple. WE 

 ARE ALL REPUBLICANS; WE ARE ALL FE- 

 DERALLSTS. If there be any among us, who would 

 wish to dissolve this uniorj or to change its republican 

 form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the 

 safety v»'ith whicli error of opiiiion may be tolerated, 

 where reason is left free to combat it. 1 know indeed 

 that some honest men fear that a republican govern- 

 ment cannot be strong — that this government is not 

 strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the 

 full tide of successful exi)erin)ent, abandon a govern- 

 ment which has so far kept us free and firm, on the 

 theoretic and visionary fear, that this government, the 

 world's best hope, may, by jjossibility, want energy to 

 preserve itself; — I trust not — 1 believe this, on the con- 

 trary, the strongest government on earth — I believe it 

 the only one. where every man, at the call of the law, 

 would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet 

 invasions of the public order as his own j)ersonal con- 

 cern. Sometimes it is said, that man cannot be trusted 

 with the governniput of hunself. Can he then be trust- 

 ed with the government of others.' or have we found 

 angels, in the form of kings, to govern him.' Let his- 

 tory answer this question. 



Let us, then, with courage and confidence, pursue our 

 own federal and rejmblican principles — our attachment 

 to union and representative government. Kindly sepa- 

 rated, by nature and a wide ocean, from the extermi- 

 nating havock of one quarter of the globe — too high- 

 minded to endure the degradations of the others — pos- 

 sessing a chosen country, with room enough for rur 

 descendants to the thousandth and thousandth genera- 

 tion — enterta"i:ing a due sense of our equal right to the 

 use of our own faculties — to the acquisitions of our own 

 industry — to honour and confidence from our fellow- 

 citizens; resulting not from birth, but from our actions, 

 and their sense of them — enlightened by a benign reli- 



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