despotism which hang over less favored lands.

Our mission is not that of propagandists--our principles forbid
interference with the institutions of other countries; but we may hope
that our example will be imitated, and should so live that this model
of representative liberty, community independence, and government
derived from the consent of the governed, and limited by a written
compact, should commend itself to the adoption of others. We now stand
isolated among the great nations of the earth; the opposition of
monarchial governments to the theory on which ours is founded, points
to the possibility of an alliance against us, by which what is termed
national law may be modified and warped to our prejudice if not to our
assailment. It needs the united power, harmonious action and
concentrated will of the people of all these States to roll the wheel
of progress to the end which our fathers contemplated, and which their
sons, if they are wise and true, may behold. May the kindness and
courtesy which have characterized the present occasion on which
Mississippi has been greeted by Maine, be a type of the feeling which
shall ever exist between the extremes of our common country. From
Florida to California, from Oregon to Maine, from the centre to the
remotest border, may the possessors of our constitutional heritage
appreciate its value, and faithfully, fraternally labor for its
thorough development, looking back to the original compact for the
purposes for which the Union was established, and forward to the
blessing which such union was designed and is competent to confer.



Speech at the Portland Meeting.