I hope I have sufficiently shown, that should even that doctrine of
non-interference have been established by the founders of your republic,
that which might have been very proper to your infancy would not now be
suitable to your manhood. It is a beautiful word of Montesquieu, that
republics are to be founded on virtue. And you know that virtue between
man and man, as sanctioned by our Christian religion, is but an exercise
of that great principle--"Thou shalt do to others as thou desirest
others to do to thee." Thus I might rely simply upon your generous
republican hearts, and upon the consistency of your principles; but I
beg to add some essential differences in material respects, between your
present condition and that of yore. Of your twenty-four millions, more
than nineteen are spread over yonder immense territory, the richest of
the world, employed in the cultivation of the soil, that honourable
occupation, which in every time has proved to be the most inexhaustible
and most unfailing source of public welfare and private happiness, as
also the most unwavering ally of freedom, and the most faithful fosterer
of all those upright, noble, generous sentiments which the constant
intercourse with ever young, ever great, ever beautiful virtue, imparts
to man. Now this immense agricultural interest, desiring large markets,
at the same time affords a solid basis to your manufacturing industry,
and in consequence to your immensely developed commerce. All this places
such a difference between the republic of Washington and your present
grandeur, that though you may well be attached to your original
principles (for the principles of liberty are everlastingly the same),
yet not so in respect to the exigencies of your policy. For if it is to
be regulated by _interest_, your country has other interests to-day
than it had then; and if ever it is to be regulated by the higher
consideration of _principles_, you are strong enough to feel that
the time is already come. And I, standing here before you to plead the