In America the government takes from the liberty of the citizen only so much as is necessary for the weal of the nation, which the citizen by his own act freely concedes. In America there are no masters, who govern in their own rights, for their own interests, or at their own will. We have over us no Louis XIV, saying: "L'etat, c'est moi;" no Hohenzollern, announcing that in his acts as sovereign he is responsible only to his conscience and to God.
Ours is the government of the people, by the people, for the people. The government is our organized will. There is no state above or apart from the people. Rights begin with and go upward from the people. In other countries, even those apparently the most free, rights begin with and come downward from the state; the rights of citizens, the rights of the people, are concessions which have been painfully wrenched from the governing powers.
With Americans, whenever the organized government does not prove its grant, the liberty of the individual citizen is sacred and inviolable. Elsewhere there are governments called republics; universal suffrage constitutes the state; but, once constituted, the state is tyrannous and arbitrary, invades at will private rights, and curtails at will individual liberty. One republic is liberty's native home—America.
OUR COUNTRY
From the speech of President McKinley, in response to the toast "Our Country," at the Peace Jubilee banquet in Chicago, October 19, 1898.
Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen:—It affords me gratification to meet the people of the city of Chicago and to participate with them in this patriotic celebration. Upon the suspension of hostilities of a foreign war, the first in our history for over half a century, we have met in a spirit of peace, profoundly grateful for the glorious advancement already made, and earnestly wishing in the final termination to realize an equally glorious fulfillment. With no feeling of exultation, but with profound thankfulness, we contemplate the events of the past five months. They have been too serious to admit of boasting or vain-glorification. They have been so full of responsibilities, immediate and prospective, as to admonish the soberest judgment and counsel the most conservative action.
This is not the time to fire the imagination, but rather to discover, in calm reason, the way to truth, and justice, and right, and when discovered to follow it with fidelity and courage, without fear, hesitation, or weakness.
The war has put upon the nation grave responsibilities. Their extent was not anticipated and could not have been well foreseen. We cannot escape the obligations of victory. We cannot avoid the serious questions which have been brought home to us by the achievements of our arms on land and sea. We are bound in conscience to keep and perform the covenants which the war has sacredly sealed with mankind. Accepting war for humanity's sake, we must accept all obligations which the war in duty and honor imposed upon us. The splendid victories we have achieved would be our eternal shame and not our everlasting glory if they led to the weakening of our original lofty purpose or to the desertion of the immortal principles on which the national government was founded, and in accordance with whose ennobling spirit it has ever since been faithfully administered.