Here exists the democratic form
of government; and that form of government, by the confession of
European statesmen, "gives a power of which no other form is capable,
because it incorporates every man with the state and arouses everything
that belongs to the soul."
Where in past history does a parallel exist to the public happiness
which is within the reach of the people of the United States? Where in
any part of the globe can institutions be found so suited to their
habits or so entitled to their love as their own free Constitution?
Every one of them, then, in whatever part of the land he has his home,
must wish its perpetuity. Who of them will not now acknowledge, in the
words of Washington, that "every step by which the people of the United
States have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to
have been distinguished by some token of providential agency"? Who will
not join with me in the prayer that the Invisible Hand which has led us
through the clouds that gloomed around our path will so guide us onward
to a perfect restoration of fraternal affection that we of this day may
be able to transmit our great inheritance of State governments in all
their rights, of the General Government in its whole constitutional
vigor, to our posterity, and they to theirs through countless
generations?
ANDREW JOHNSON.
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