“Gentlemen: 

“By the entire friendship of the citizens of Boston, as well as the particular friendship with which you have received me this evening, I have been brought to reflect on times that have gone by, and review a prejudice that has grown up with me, as well as thousands of my Western and Southern friends.  We have always been taught to look upon the people of New England as a selfish, cunning set of fellows, that was fed on fox-ears and thistle-tops; that cut their wisdom-teeth as soon as they were born; that made money by their wits, and held on to it by nature; that called cheatery mother-wit; that hung on to political power because they had numbers; that raised up manufactures to keep down the South and West; and, in fact, had so much of the devil in all their machinery, that they would neither lead nor drive, unless the load was going into their own cribs.  But I assure you, gentlemen, I begin to think different of you, and I think I see a good many good reasons for so doing.

“I don’t mean that because I eat your bread and drink your liquor, that I feel so.  No; that don’t make me see clearer than I did.  It is your habits, and manners, and customs; your industry; your proud, independent spirits; your hanging on to the eternal principles of right and wrong; your liberality in prosperity, and your patience when you are ground down by legislation, which, instead of crushing you, whets your invention to strike a path without a blaze on a tree to guide you; and above all, your never-dying, deathless grip to our glorious Constitution.  These are the things that make me think that you are a mighty good people.”

Here the speaker was interrupted by great applause.

“Gentlemen, I believe I have spoke the truth, and not flattery; I ain’t used to oily words; I am used to speak what I think, of men, and to men.  I am, perhaps, more of a come-by-chance than any of you ever saw; I have made my way to the place I now fill, without wealth, and against education; I was raised from obscurity, and placed in the high councils of the nation, by the kindness and liberality of the good people of my district—­a people whom I will never be unfaithful to, here or elsewhere; I love them, and they have honored me; and according as God has given me judgment, I’ll use it for them, come of me what may.

“These people once passed sentence upon me of a two years’ stay-at-home, for exercising that which I contend belongs to every freeman in this nation:  that was, for differing in opinion with the chief magistrate of this nation.  I was well acquainted with him.  He was but a man; and, if I was not before, my constituents had made a man of me.  I had marched and counter-marched with him:  I had stood by him in the wars, and fought under his flag at the polls:  I helped to heap the measure of glory that has crushed and smashed everything that has come in contact with it:  I helped to give him the name of ‘Hero,’ which, like the lightning from heaven, has scorched and blasted everything that stood in its way—­a name which, like the prairie fire, you have to burn against, or you are gone—­a name which ought to be the first in war, and the last in peace—­a name which, like ’Jack-o’-the lantern, blinds your eyes while you follow it through mud and mire.