It is a source of gratification and of encouragement to me to observe
that the great result of this experiment upon the theory of human
rights has at the close of that generation by which it was formed been
crowned with success equal to the most sanguine expectations of its
founders. Union, justice, tranquillity, the common defense, the general
welfare, and the blessings of liberty - all have been promoted by the
Government under which we have lived. Standing at this point of time,
looking back to that generation which has gone by and forward to that
which is advancing, we may at once indulge in grateful exultation and
in cheering hope. From the experience of the past we derive instructive
lessons for the future. Of the two great political parties which have
divided the opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the
just will now admit that both have contributed splendid talents,
spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices to
the formation and administration of this Government, and that both have
required a liberal indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and
error. The revolutionary wars of Europe, commencing precisely at the
moment when the Government of the United States first went into
operation under this Constitution, excited a collision of sentiments
and of sympathies which kindled all the passions and imbittered the
conflict of parties till the nation was involved in war and the Union
was shaken to its center. This time of trial embraced a period of five
and twenty years, during which the policy of the Union in its relations
with Europe constituted the principal basis of our political divisions
and the most arduous part of the action of our Federal Government. With
the catastrophe in which the wars of the French Revolution terminated,
and our own subsequent peace with Great Britain, this baneful weed of
party strife was uprooted. From that time no difference of principle,
connected either with the theory of government or with our intercourse
with foreign nations, has existed or been called forth in force