Gentlemen, what I have said of the benefits of the Constitution to your city might be said, with little change, in respect to every other part of the country.  Its benefits are not exclusive.  What has it left undone, which any government could do, for the whole country?  In what condition has it placed us?  Where do we now stand?  Are we elevated, or degraded, by its operation?  What is our condition under its influence, at the very moment when some talk of arresting its power and breaking its unity?  Do we not feel ourselves on an eminence?  Do we not challenge the respect of the whole world?  What has placed us thus high?  What has given us this just pride?  What else is it, but the unrestrained and free operation of that same Federal Constitution, which it has been proposed now to hamper, and manacle, and nullify?  Who is there among us, that, should he find himself on any spot of the earth where human beings exist, and where the existence of other nations is known, would not be proud to say, I am an American?  I am a countryman of Washington?  I am a citizen of that republic, which, although it has suddenly sprung up, yet there are none on the globe who have ears to hear, and have not heard of it; who have eyes to see, and have not read of it; who know any thing, and yet do not know of its existence and its glory?  And, Gentlemen, let me now reverse the picture.  Let me ask, who there is among us, if he were to be found to-morrow in one of the civilized countries of Europe, and were there to learn that this goodly form of government had been overthrown, that the United States were no longer united, that a death-blow had been struck upon their bond of union, that they themselves had destroyed their chief good and their chief honor,—­who is there whose heart would not sink within him?  Who is there who would not cover his face for very shame?

At this very moment, Gentlemen, our country is a general refuge for the distressed and the persecuted of other nations.  Whoever is in affliction from political occurrences in his own country looks here for shelter.  Whether he be republican, flying from the oppression of thrones, or whether he be monarch or monarchist, flying from thrones that crumble and fall under or around him, he feels equal assurance, that, if he get foothold on our soil, his person will be safe, and his rights will be respected.

And who will venture to say, that, in any government now existing in the world, there is greater security for persons or property than in that of the United States?  We have tried these popular institutions in times of great excitement and commotion, and they have stood, substantially, firm and steady, while the fountains of the great political deep have been elsewhere broken up; while thrones, resting on ages of prescription, have tottered and fallen; and while, in other countries, the earthquake of unrestrained popular commotion has swallowed up all law, and all liberty, and all right together.  Our government