of spoliation which hitherto had been prevented by similar means.  I therefore am certainly no advocate of this false system of political balance of power, and I believe the time will come when that idol will be thrown down from the place which it usurps, and law and right will be restored to their sovereign sway.  But still I may say, it is an imperious necessity for all the world in general, as also for the United States, that something should be done to prevent the measureless territorial aggrandizement of one single power, chiefly when that power is the mighty antagonist of your own Republic, as indeed Russia is.

I have on many occasions spoken of the necessary antagonism between despotic Russia and republican America.  Allow me here to recapitulate some facts concerning Russia.

No man familiar with the history of the last hundred years is ignorant that the Czars of Russia take it for their destiny to rule the world.  It is their hereditary policy, in which they are brought up from generation to generation, till that infatuation becomes a point of their character.  To come to that aim—­Russian preponderance steps forth alike with protocols, with emissaries, and with war—­in two directions westward and eastward, against Europe and against Asia.

As to Europe, after having completed her arrondisement on the Baltic—­her earnest aim is partly direct conquest, and partly sovereign preponderance.  Direct conquest, so far as the Sclave race is spread; which the Czars desire to unite under their despotic sceptre.  To attain that end, the house of Romanoff has started the idea of Pansclavism, the idea of union of the Sclavish nationality under Russian protectorate.—­Protectorate is always the first step which Russia takes when desiring to conquer.

She has styled that ambitious design the regeneration of the Sclave nationality; and to blindfold those deluded nations that they may not see that without independence and freedom no nationality exists, she has flattered their ambition with the prospect of dominion over the world.  The Latin race had its turn, and the German race had, and now it is the Sclave race which is called to rule and master the world.  Such was the Satanic temptation of pride, by which Russia advanced in that ambitious scheme.  I will not now speak of the mischief she has succeeded to do in that respect:  I will only mark the fact that the ambition of Russia aims at the direct dominion of Europe, so far as it is inhabited by the Sclave race.  The slightest knowledge of geography is sufficient to make it understood that this would be such an accession to the power of Russia, that, were they united under one man’s despotic will, the independence of the rest of Europe, should even Russia prudently decline a direct conquest of it, would be but a mockery.  The Czar would be omnipotent over it, as indeed he is near to be already, at least on the Continent.