But while I acknowledge the wisdom of your attachment to fundamental doctrines, I beg leave with equal frankness to state, that, in my opinion, there can be scarcely anything more dangerous to the progressive development of a nation, than to mistake for a basis that which is none; to mistake for a principle that which is but a transitory convenience; to take for substantial that which is but accidental; or to take for a constitutional doctrine that which is but a momentary exigency of administrative policy.  Such a course of action would be like to a healthy man refusing substantial food, because when he was once weak in stomach his physician ordered him a severe diet.  Let me suppose, gentlemen, that that doctrine of non-interference was really bequeathed to you by your Washingtons (and that it was not, I will essay to prove afterwards), and let me even suppose that your Washingtons imparted to it such an interpretation, as were equivalent to the words of Cain, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (which supposition would be, of course, a sacrilege; but I am forced to such suppositions:) I may be entitled to ask, is the dress which suited the child, still suitable to the full grown man?  Would it not be ridiculous to lay the man into the child’s cradle, and to sing him to sleep by a lullaby?  In the origin of the United States you were an infant people, and you had, of course, nothing to do but to grow, to grow, and to grow.  But now you are so far grown that there is no foreign power on earth from which you have anything to fear for your existence or security.  In fact, your growth is that of a giant.  Of old, your infant frame was composed of thirteen states, and was restricted to the borders of the Atlantic:  now, your massive bulk is spread to the gulf of Mexico and the Pacific, and your territory is a continent.  Your right hand touches Europe over the waves; your left reaches across the Pacific to eastern Asia; and there, between two quarters of the world, there you stand, in proud immensity, a world yourselves.  Then you were a small people of three millions and a half; now you are a mighty nation of twenty-four millions.  Thus you have fully entered into the second stadium of national life, in which a nation lives at length not for itself separately, but as a member of the great family of human nations; having a right to whatever is due from that family towards every one of its full-grown members, but also engaged to every duty which that great family may claim from every one of its full-grown members.

A nation may, either from comparative weakness, or by choice and policy, as Japan and China, or by both these motives, as Paraguay under Dr. Francia,—­be induced to live a life secluded from the world, indifferent to the destinies of mankind, in which it cannot or will not have any share.  But then it must be willing to be also excluded from the benefits of progress, civilization and national intercourse, while disavowing