“Having with this announcement delivered to you the documents entrusted to my charge, I must be considered as having exhausted my official functions.  Yet, sir, having had the honour of introducing the resolve to the Legislature of Massachusetts [cheers], and witnessing with pleasure the unanimous and instant concurrence of her four hundred representatives [renewed cheers], I will venture to add a few words beyond the record—­only such words, however, as cannot fail to be consonant with the sentiment and hearts of her people.

“The people of Massachusetts would have you accept this act of her constituted authorities as no unmeaning compliment. Never, in her history as an independent State, with one single and illustrious exception, has Massachusetts tendered such a mark of respect to any other than the chief magistrates of these United States.  And even in the present instance, much as she admires your patriotism, your eloquence, your untiring devotedness and zeal,—­deeply as she is moved by your plaintive appeals and supplications in behalf of your native and oppressed land—­greatly as she is amazed by the irrepressible elasticity with which you rise from under the heel of oppression, with fortitude increased under sufferings, with assurance growing stronger as the darkness grows deeper [cheers], still, it is not one or all these qualities combined that can lead her to swerve from her dignity as an independent State to the mere worship of man. [Applause.] No!  But it is because she views you as the advocate and representative of certain great principles which constitute her own vitality as a State;—­because she views you as the representative of human rights and freedom in another and far distant land,—­it is because she views you as the rightful but exiled Governor of a people, whose past history and whose recent deeds show them to be worthy of some better future than that of Russian tyranny and Austrian oppression,—­that she seeks to welcome you to her borders:  that she seeks to attest to a gazing world that to the cause of freedom she is not insensible, and that to the oppression of tyrants she is not indifferent.”

Mr. Hopkins then proceeded to recount the public glories of Massachusetts, which he summed up in “Religion, Education, and Freedom,—­a tricolour for the world.”  He avowed Massachusetts to be “the birth-place of American liberty;” and stated that her government is carried on in 322 cities and townships, literally democratic assemblies, which levy their own taxes, sustain their own schools, police, tribunals &c., and receive and pay local funds four or five times larger than those of the State treasury.  “The seat of Government,” said he, “is a fiction in Massachusetts, save as it signifies the hearts of the people.  Come to her borders; witness the truth of all and more than I have uttered; as you shall find it attested by our institutions, by the plenitude of our hospitality, and by the acclamations of one million souls.”