LOVE OF AMERICA.
Daniel Webster, the celebrated American statesman, jurist, and orator. Born at Salisbury, N. H., January 18, 1782; died at Marshfield, Mass., October 24, 1852.
I profess to feel a strong attachment to the liberty of the United States; to the constitution and free institutions of the United States; to the honor, and I may say the glory, of this great Government and great country.
I feel every injury inflicted upon this country almost as a personal injury. I blush for every fault which I think I see committed in its public councils as if they were faults or mistakes of my own.
I know that, at this moment, there is no object upon earth so attracting the gaze of the intelligent and civilized nations of the earth as this great Republic. All men look at us, all men examine our course, all good men are anxious for a favorable result to this great experiment of republican liberty. We are on a hill and can not be hid. We can not withdraw ourselves either from the commendation or the reproaches of the civilized world. They see us as that star of empire which, half a century ago, was predicted as making its way westward. I wish they may see it as a mild, placid, though brilliant orb, making its way athwart the whole heavens, to the enlightening and cheering of mankind; and not a meteor of fire and blood, terrifying the nations.