The inestimable value of our Federal Union is felt and acknowledged by all.  By this system of united and confederated States our people are permitted collectively and individually to seek their own happiness in their own way, and the consequences have been most auspicious.  Since the Union was formed the number of the States has increased from thirteen to twenty-eight; two of these have taken their position as members of the Confederacy within the last week.  Our population has increased from three to twenty millions.  New communities and States are seeking protection under its aegis, and multitudes from the Old World are flocking to our shores to participate in its blessings.  Beneath its benign sway peace and prosperity prevail.  Freed from the burdens and miseries of war, our trade and intercourse have extended throughout the world.  Mind, no longer tasked in devising means to accomplish or resist schemes of ambition, usurpation, or conquest, is devoting itself to man’s true interests in developing his faculties and powers and the capacity of nature to minister to his enjoyments.  Genius is free to announce its inventions and discoveries, and the hand is free to accomplish whatever the head conceives not incompatible with the rights of a fellow-being.  All distinctions of birth or of rank have been abolished.  All citizens, whether native or adopted, are placed upon terms of precise equality.  All are entitled to equal rights and equal protection.  No union exists between church and state, and perfect freedom of opinion is guaranteed to all sects and creeds.

These are some of the blessings secured to our happy land by our Federal Union.  To perpetuate them it is our sacred duty to preserve it.  Who shall assign limits to the achievements of free minds and free hands under the protection of this glorious Union?  No treason to mankind since the organization of society would be equal in atrocity to that of him who would lift his hand to destroy it.  He would overthrow the noblest structure of human wisdom, which protects himself and his fellow-man.  He would stop the progress of free government and involve his country either in anarchy or despotism.  He would extinguish the fire of liberty, which warms and animates the hearts of happy millions and invites all the nations of the earth to imitate our example.  If he say that error and wrong are committed in the administration of the Government, let him remember that nothing human can be perfect, and that under no other system of government revealed by Heaven or devised by man has reason been allowed so free and broad a scope to combat error.  Has the sword of despots proved to be a safer or surer instrument of reform in government than enlightened reason?  Does he expect to find among the ruins of this Union a happier abode for our swarming millions than they now have under it?  Every lover of his country must shudder at the thought of the possibility of its dissolution, and will be