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
difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have
called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are
all Republicans, we are all Federalists. If there be any among us
who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican
form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with
which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free
to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a
republican government can not be strong, that this Government is
not strong enough; but would the honest patriot, in the full tide
of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far
kept us free and firm on the theoretic and visionary fear that
this Government, the world's best hope, may by possibility want
energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the
contrary, the strongest Government on earth. I believe it the only