MR. PRESIDENT:—­Bidden by your invitation to a discussion of the race problem—­forbidden by occasion to make a political speech—­I appreciate, in trying to reconcile orders with propriety, the perplexity of the little maid, who, bidden to learn to swim, was yet adjured, “Now, go, my darling; hang your clothes on a hickory limb, and don’t go near the water.”

The stoutest apostle of the Church, they say, is the missionary, and the missionary, wherever he unfurls his flag, will never find himself in deeper need of unction and address than I, bidden to-night to plant the standard of a Southern Democrat in Boston’s banquet hall, and to discuss the problem of the races in the home of Phillips and of Sumner.  But, Mr. President, if a purpose to speak in perfect frankness and sincerity; if earnest understanding of the vast interests involved; if a consecrating sense of what disaster may follow further misunderstanding and estrangement; if these may be counted upon to steady undisciplined speech and to strengthen an untried arm—­then, sir, I shall find the courage to proceed.

Happy am I that this mission has brought my feet at last to press New England’s historic soil and my eyes to the knowledge of her beauty and her thrift.  Here within touch of Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill—­where Webster thundered and Longfellow sang, Emerson thought and Channing preached—­here, in the cradle of American letters and almost of American liberty, I hasten to make the obeisance that every American owes New England when first he stands uncovered in her mighty presence.  Strange apparition!  This stern and unique figure—­carved from the ocean and the wilderness—­its majesty kindling and growing amid the storms of winter and of wars—­until at last the gloom was broken, its beauty disclosed in the sunshine, and the heroic workers rested at its base—­while startled kings and emperors gazed and marveled that from the rude touch of this handful cast on a bleak and unknown shore should have come the embodied genius of human government and the perfected model of human liberty!  God bless the memory of those immortal workers, and prosper the fortunes of their living sons—­and perpetuate the inspiration of their handiwork.

Two years ago, sir, I spoke some words in New York that caught the attention of the North.  As I stand here to reiterate, as I have done everywhere, every word I then uttered—­to declare that the sentiments I then avowed were universally approved in the South—­I realize that the confidence begotten by that speech is largely responsible for my presence here to-night.  I should dishonor myself if I betrayed that confidence by uttering one insincere word, or by withholding one essential element of the truth.  Apropos of this last, let me confess, Mr. President, before the praise of New England has died on my lips, that I believe the best product of her present life is the procession of seventeen thousand Vermont Democrats that for twenty-two years, undiminished by death, unrecruited by birth or conversion, have marched over their rugged hills, cast their Democratic ballots and gone back home to pray for their unregenerate neighbors, and awake to read the record of twenty-six thousand Republican majority.  May the God of the helpless and the heroic help them, and may their sturdy tribe increase.