Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest
links in that golden chain which is destined, I fondly believe, to
grapple the people of all the States to this Constitution for ages to
come. We have a great, popular, Constitutional Government, guarded
by law and by judicature, and defended by the affections of the whole
people. No monarchical throne presses these States together, no iron
chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand under a
Government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded
upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last
forever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden down
no man's liberty; it has crushed no State. Its daily respiration is
liberty and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise,
courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the
country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This Republic
now extends, with a vast breadth across the whole continent.
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