What, my friends, must be the consequences of this agitation? Good or
evil? They have been evil, and evil they must be only, to the end. Not
one particle of good has been done to any man, of any color, by this
agitation. It has been insidiously working the purpose of sedition,
for the destruction of that Union on which our hopes of future
greatness depend.

On the one side, then you see agitation, tending slowly and steadily
to that separation of the states, which, if you have any hope
connected with the liberty of mankind, if you have any national pride
in making your country the greatest of the earth, if you have any
sacred regard for the obligation which the acts of your fathers
entailed upon you,--by each and all of these motives you are prompted
to united and earnest effort to promote the success of that great
experiment which your fathers left it to you to conclude. [Applause.]
On the other hand, if each community, in accordance with the
principles of our government, whilst controlling its own domestic
institutions, faithfully struggles as a part of the united whole, for
the common benefit of all, the future points us to fraternity, to
unity, to co-operation, to the increase of our own happiness, to the
extension of our useful example over mankind, and the covering of that
flag, whose stars have already more than doubled their original
number, [applause,] with a galaxy to light the ample folds which then
shall wave either the recognized flag of every state, or the
recognized protector of every state upon the continent of America.
[Applause.]

In connection with the idea, which I have presented of the early
sentiment of community independence, I will add the very striking fact