Constitution I shall find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal
on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, then, gentlemen, who
are charged with the sovereign functions of legislation, and to those
associated with you, I look with encouragement for that guidance and
support which may enable us to steer with safety the vessel in which we
are all embarked amidst the conflicting elements of a troubled world.

During the contest of opinion through which we have passed the
animation of discussions and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect
which might impose on strangers unused to think freely and to speak and
to write what they think; but this being now decided by the voice of
the nation, announced according to the rules of the Constitution, all
will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and
unite in common efforts for the common good. All, too, will bear in
mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in
all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that
the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect,
and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens,
unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse
that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself
are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from
our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled
and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political
intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody
persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world,
during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood
and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the
agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful
shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by
others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every