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I know that it professes at this
moment to be the chosen instrument of protecting mercy, and would win
upon us by its benignant smiles; but I know, too, it can frown and play
the tyrant, if it be so disposed. Notwithstanding the softness which it
now assumes, and the care with which it conceals its giant proportions
beneath the deceitful drapery of sentiment, when it next appears before
you it may show itself with a sterner countenance and in more awful
dimensions. It is, to speak the truth, sir, a power of colossal size--if
indeed it be not an abuse of language to call it by the gentle name of a
power. Sir, it is a wilderness of power, of which fancy in her happiest
mood is unable to perceive the far distant and shadowy boundary. Armed
with such a power, with religion in one hand and philanthropy in the
other, and followed with a goodly train of public and private virtues,
you may achieve more conquests over sovereignties not your own than
falls to the common lot of even uncommon ambition.


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