to the just powers of the Constitution, we shall then be visited by an evil defying all remedy.  Our case will be past surgery.  From that moment the Constitution is at an end.  If they who are appointed to defend the castle shall betray it, woe betide those within!  If I live to see that day come, I shall despair of the country.  I shall be prepared to give it back to all its former afflictions in the days of the Confederation.  I know no security against the possibility of this evil, but an awakened public vigilance.  I know no safety, but in that state of public opinion which shall lead it to rebuke and put down every attempt, either to gratify party by judicial appointments, or to dilute the Constitution by creating a court which shall construe away its provisions.  If members of Congress betray their trust, the people will find it out before they are ruined.  If the President should at any time violate his duty, his term of office is short, and popular elections may supply a seasonable remedy.  But the judges of the Supreme Court possess, for very good reasons, an independent tenure of office.  No election reaches them.  If, with this tenure, they betray their trusts, Heaven save us!  Let us hope for better results.  The past, certainly, may encourage us.  Let us hope that we shall never see the time when there shall exist such an awkward posture of affairs, as that the government shall be found in opposition to the Constitution, and when the guardians of the Union shall become its betrayers.

Gentlemen, our country stands, at the present time, on commanding ground.  Older nations, with different systems of government, may be somewhat slow to acknowledge all that justly belongs to us.  But we may feel without vanity, that America is doing her part in the great work of improving human affairs.  There are two principles, Gentlemen, strictly and purely American, which are now likely to prevail throughout the civilized world.  Indeed, they seem the necessary result of the progress of civilization and knowledge.  These are, first, popular governments, restrained by written constitutions; and, secondly, universal education.  Popular governments and general education, acting and reacting, mutually producing and reproducing each other, are the mighty agencies which in our days appear to be exciting, stimulating, and changing civilized societies.  Man, everywhere, is now found demanding a participation in government,—­and he will not be refused; and he demands knowledge as necessary to self-government.  On the basis of these two principles, liberty and knowledge, our own American systems rest.  Thus far we have not been disappointed in their results.  Our existing institutions, raised on these foundations, have conferred on us almost unmixed happiness.  Do we hope to better our condition by change?  When we shall have nullified the present Constitution, what are we to receive in its place?  As fathers, do we wish for our children better government,