The Union is connected with the Declaration of Independence. The Union is an institution: the Declaration of Independence is an assertion of rights, and an exposition of principles. When principles are disregarded, institutions do not, for any considerable time, retain their original value. And it would be the folly of other nations, without excuse in us, were we to worship blindly any institution, whatever its origin or its history. I do not, myself, doubt the value of the American Union. It was the necessity of the time when it was formed; it is the necessity of the present moment; it was, indeed, the claim of our whole colonial life, and its recognition could be postponed no longer when the colonies crossed the threshold of national existence.

The colonies had carried on a correspondence among themselves upon important matters; the New England settlements formed a confederation in 1643, that was the prototype of the present Union; and the convention at Albany, in 1754, considered in connection with various resolutions and declarations, indicated a growing desire "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty" to the successive generations that should occupy the American continent.

For these exalted purposes the Constitution was framed, and the Union established; and the Constitution and the Union will remain as long as these exalted purposes, with any considerable share of fidelity, are secured. The Union will not be destroyed by declamation, nor can declamation preserve it. Words have power only when they awaken a response in the minds of those who listen. The Union will be judged, finally, by its merits; and they are not powerful enemies for evil who attack it through the press and from the rostrum; but rather they who, clothed with authority, brief or permanent, interpret the constitution so as to defeat the end for which it was framed. Nor are they the best friends of the Union who lavishly bestow upon it nicely-wrought encomiums, as though the gilding of rhetoric and the ornament of praise could shield a human institution from the judgment of a free people; but rather they who, under Heaven, and in the presence of men, seek to so interpret the constitution as, in the language and in the order of its preamble, "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty" to themselves and their posterity. Words are powerless, and enemies—envious, jealous, or deluded—are powerless, when they war upon a system of government that secures such exalted results. And, if in these later days of our national existence patriotism has been weakened, respect and reverence for the constitution and the Union have been diminished, it is because the actual government under the constitution has, in the judgment of many, failed to realize the government of the constitution.

But let no one despair of the Republic. Men are now building better than they know; possibly, better than they wish. A great government, powerful in its justice, and therefore to be respected and maintained, must also be powerful in its errors, prejudices, and wrongs, and therefore to be changed and reformed in these respects. The declaration "that all men are created equal" is vital, and will live in the presence of all governments, strong as well as weak, hostile as well as friendly. It has no respect for worldly authority, so evidently is it a direct emanation of the Divine Mind, and so does it harmonize with the highest manifestations of the nature of man. But the Declaration of Independence does not, in this particular, assert that all men are created equal in height or weight, equal in physical strength, intellectual power, or moral worth. It is not dealing with these qualities at all, but with the natural political rights and relations of men. In its view, all are born free from any political subordination to others on account of the accidents or incidents of family or historic name. And hence it follows that no man, by birth or nature, has any right in political affairs to control his fellow-man; and hence it follows further, as there is neither subjection anywhere nor authority anywhere, that all men are created equal, that governments derive their "just powers from the consent of the governed." And hence it must, ere long, be demonstrated by this country, under the light of Christianity, and in the presence of the world, that man cannot have property in his fellow-man.

And, again, let no one despair of the Republic or of the Union; nor let any, with rash confidence, believe that they are indestructible. They are human institutions built up through great sacrifices, and by the exercise of a high order of worldly wisdom. But the government is not an end—it is a means. The end is Liberty regulated by law; and the means will exist as long as the end thereof is attained. But, should the time ever come when the institutions of the country fail to secure the blessings of liberty to the living generation, and hold out no promise of better things in the future, I know not that these institutions could longer exist, of that they ought longer to exist. To be sure, the horizon is not always distinctly seen. The sky is not always clear; there are dark spots upon the disk of Liberty, as upon the sun in the heavens; but, like the sun, its presence is for all. And, whether there be night, or clouds, or distance, its blessings can never be wholly withdrawn from the human race.

It is not to be concealed, however, that the affections of the people have been alienated from the American Union during the last seven years, as they were from the union with Great Britain during the years of our colonial life immediately previous to the Massacre in King-street, in 1770. This solemn personal and public experience is fraught with a great lesson. It should teach those who are intrusted with the administration of public affairs to translate the language of the constitution into the stern realities of public policy, in the light of the Declaration of Independence, and of Liberty; and it should warn those who constitute the government, and who judge it, not to allow their opposition to men or to measures to degenerate into indifference or hostility to the institutions of the country.

A little distrust of ourselves, who see not beyond our own horizon, might sometimes lend charity to our judgment, and discretion to our opposition; for, in the turmoil of politics, and the contests of statesmanship, even, it is not always

"——the sea that sinks and shelves,

But ourselves,

That rook and rise