But while we have done our best to satisfy the Yankee, there is one
thing we have never been able to do. We can meet his ambition and fill
his purse, but we never can satisfy his stomach. When the President
stated to-night that Plymouth Rock celebrated this anniversary on the
21st, whilst we here did so on the 22d, he did not state the true
reason. It is not as he said, a dispute about dates. The pork and beans
of Plymouth are insufficient for the cravings of the Yankee appetite,
and they chose the 21st, in order that, by the night train, they may get
to New York on the 22d, to have once a year a square meal. From 1620
down to the opening of New York to their settlement, a constantly
increasing void was growing inside the Yankee diaphragm, and even now
the native and imported Yankee finds the best-appointed restaurant in
the world sufficient for his wants; and he has migrated to this house,
that he may annually have the sensation of sufficiency in the largest
hotel in the United States.

My friend, Mr. Curtis, has eloquently stated, in the beginning of his
address, the Dutchman's idea of the old Puritan. He has stated, at the
close of his address, the modern opinion of the old Puritan. He was an
uncomfortable man to live with, but two hundred years off a grand
historic figure. If any one of you, gentlemen, was compelled to leave
this festive board, and go back two hundred years and live with your
ancestor of that day, eat his fare, drink his drink, and listen to his
talk, what a time would be there, my countrymen! Before the Puritan was
fitted to accomplish the work he did, with all the great opportunities
that were in him, it was necessary that he should spend two years in
Leyden and learn from the Dutch the important lesson of religious
toleration, and the other fundamental lesson, that a common school
education lies at the foundation of all civil and religious liberty. If