Americans; we are all citizens of one government. I come from a state washed by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and I am now in a city belonging to a great state washed by the St. Lawrence, and stand this evening in a building against which the waves of New York Bay break; yet the broad expanse which stretches between New York and Alabama, between your home and my home, is our common country. Every part of it-every plain, and mountain, and stream, and village, and city, all belong to. us; and over the whole extent of it, the same great and beneficent political system spreads its majestic proportions.

The same flag that floats over your shipping floats over ours; the same historic recollections which warm your hearts warm ours; and the same future that has opened to your eyes has opened to ours. Diversities I know there are; great states, called by different names, there are; but they are not hostile states. No fortress frowns upon the streams which mark their boundaries; it is but an extension of the same family; they have spread from the Atlantic shores to the Mississippi-to the Rocky Mountains-to the Pacific coast, but they have borne with them every where the same religious and political institutions.

As Americans, therefore, I know that in this we shall sympathize with each other-we have a common country; common in its origin, common in its history, and common in its destiny. There is another consideration to which I will advert. are all alike interested in the success of American industry; we feel we are pledged to this great cause.

It is this: We

The industry which belongs to the North interests us of the South; and, gentlemen, I say to you, standing. here as a representative in the Congress of the United States, in my judgment, the common government ought to grant a wise, moderate, and steady protection to American industry.

I believe that agriculture, the first great employment of man--the noblest employment of man-agriculture, which takes one from his fireside into the . fields, where with the plow he turns the soil to the face of heaven, and casts the seed in with his handsagriculture should enjoy the support of the government, whose protection should also be equally extended to the mechanic arts. Let the artisan who labors at the forge or in the work-shop feel that his government cares for and protects him, and he will feel an interest in the prosperity of his government.

I regard this exhibition as one of the noblest displays of American character. It is like America!

Some years since, when in Europe, I witnessed an Exhibition of Industry in Paris; it was composed chiefly of articles of beauty and grace. Every where the eye rested on some article marked by exquisite skill. Every thing attested the perfection to which art had been carried in some of its branches.

Of

But when I entered your Fair to-night, I found that you are employed chiefly in the production of useful articles. I find here the plow, the scythe, the axe, and among these the manufactures of our looms. all the branches of human industry and specimens of excellent skill, the great elements I see are those of power-mighty industry, spreading happiness over the land.

In former times, wealth and industry were expend

ed for the benefit of the few.

The

The head of a power. ful dynasty, one who had his retainers, enjoyed chiefly the result of their labors. It is not so now. skill of the mechanic, the power of the artisan, and the wealth of the capitalist, these are now employed for the benefit of the masses; not to make the great greater and the rich richer, but to spread comfort among the masses, to make their firesides smile with happiness, and their children rejoice in the home of industry.

This is the great picture which America presents— industry diffusing wealth among the masses. It is a glorious spectacle of wide-spread happiness. The tendency of our institutions is to diffuse wealth rather than to concentrate it in a few hands, and I rejoice that it is so. But understand me; wealth is entitled to protection as well as industry. I have no sympathy with that class of reformers who would strip the wealthy of their possessions, and scatter them abroad in the vain hope of augmenting the sum of human happiness by destroying the great principles which bind society together. Far be it from me, gentlemen. I would have every man enjoy his individual property; I am for that sort of industry which spreads wealth among the laboring classes, and elevates them gradually to the scale that rises above them.

Government is constituted for the good of those who support it; no government can be stable or powerful which is not administered for their benefit. I find that I have announced a great political doctrine; it is one which history teaches, and future gen

erations will write it upon the face of the whole earth. No government ought to stand which overlooks or neglects the welfare of its people. The American government, the greatest popular government which the world has ever beheld, is established for the protection of its people in all their rights, at home and abroad. When the American citizen quits his own shores, he looks to his government for protection against the tyranny of other governments; upon the high seas he feels, in the flag that floats over him, ample security, because the whole power of America goes with that flag; and, wherever he may go in his travels, he feels that his far-distant home guarantees his safety.

It

But, gentlemen, this is not the only object for which our government was established. The citizen must be protected in the enjoyment of the fruits of his industry. The government, in conducting its great operations, must not overlook the individual prosperity of its people, or sacrifice their personal welfare merely to advance the glory of the state. should, in its action, foster the labor of its people. I do not mean that it should shower benefits upon the indolent; far from it. We raise our revenue by laying imposts. Now, are we to do this for the purpose of raising the greatest amount of revenue, and thus increase our treasury? Far from it. We are so to lay them upon foreign imports as to discriminate in favor of our own industry; not so as to keep out the foreign article, but to do what shall result to the benefit of the producer at home. While we thus raise an ample revenue, and carry on the government,

we shall make the system tributary to the prosperity of the whole country-the North and the Southand to all classes-the manufacturer and the planter.

And now, gentlemen, allow me to say, speaking to you as a Southern man, that the diversified interests of our great country must all be respected. There must be no war made by the South upon the property and the industry of the North, nor must there be any war made by the North upon the property and the industry of the South. I appeal to you, Mr. President, distinguished as you have been in public life, personal character and mind, to hear me, when I utter this great truth. We must make no war upon your property and industry, and you must make no war upon ours. This is the great conservative element of our Union; it is only upon this grant that we can hold together as a general government. We are one people, with a common origin; our interests, however diversified, are yet kindred and dependent; our history and our destiny are the same. While we understand each other in this respect, there is no dif ficulty in upholding the government. I am a Southern man by birth, by education, by innumerable and indestructible ties; my ashes will mingle with Southern soil; but my heart beats with exultation, which I should attempt in vain to express in words, when I survey the growth, the prosperity, and the rising glories of this whole country. Your resources, great as they are your wealth, teeming as it is-this magnificent display of mechanic art-none of this awakens within me any jealous or unworthy feeling. I rejoice in your prosperity; I would cheer you in the bright