Sir,--Before I answer you, let me look over this animated ocean, that I
may impress upon my memory the look of those who have transformed the
wilderness of a primitive forest into an immense city, of which there
exists a prediction that, by the year of our Lord 2000, it will be the
greatest city in the world.
"The West! the West! the region of the Father of Rivers," there thou
canst see the cradle of a new-born humanity. So I was told by the
learned expounders of descriptive geography, who believe that they know
the world, because they have seen it on maps.
The West a cradle! Why? A cradle is the sleeping place of a child
wrapped in swaddling clothes and crying for the mother's milk.
People of Cincinnati, are you that child which, awakening in an
unwatched moment, liberated his tender hands from the swaddling band,
swept away by his left arm the primitive forest planted by the Lord at
creation's dawn, and raised by his right hand this mighty metropolis.
Why, if that be your childhood's pastime, I am awed by the presentiment
of your manhood's task; for it is written, that it is forbidden to men
to approach too near to omnipotence. And that people here which created
this rich city, and changed the native woods of the red man into a
flourishing seat of Christian civilization and civilized
Christianity--into a living workshop of science and art, of industry and
widely spread commerce; and performed this change, not like the drop,
which, by falling incessantly through centuries, digs a gulf where a
mountain stood, but performed it suddenly within the turn of the hand,
like a magician; that people achieved a prouder work than the giants of
old, who dared to pile Ossa upon Pelion; but excuse me, the comparison
is bad.
Those giants of old heaped mountain upon mountain, with the impious
design to storm the heavens. You have transformed the wilderness of the
West into the dwelling-place of an enlightened, industrious, intelligent
Christian community, that it may flourish a living monument of the
wonderful bounty of Divine Providence--a temple of freedom, which
glorifies God, and bids oppressed humanity to hope.
And yet, when I look at you, citizens of Cincinnati, I see no race of
giants, astonishing by uncommon frame: I see men as I am wont to see all
my life, and I have lived almost long enough to have seen Cincinnati a
small hamlet, composed of some modest log-houses, separated by dense
woods, where savage beast and savage Indian lurked about the lonely
settlers, who, as the legend of Jacob Wetzel and his faithful log tells,
had to wrestle for life when they left their poor abode.
What is the key of this rapid wonderful change? The glorious cities of
old were founded by heroes whom posterity called demi-gods, and whose
name survived their work by thousands of years. Who is your hero? Who
stood god-father at the birth of the Queen of the West?
I looked to history and found not his name. But instead of one mortal
man's renowned name, I find in the records of your city's history an
immortal being's name, and that is, _the people_. The word sparkles
with the lustre of a life invigorating flame, and that flame is LIBERTY.
Freedom, regulated by wise institutions, based upon the great principle
of national independence and self-government; this is the magical rod by
which the great enchanter, "_the people_," has achieved this
wonderful work.
Sir, there is a mighty change going on in human development. Formerly
great things were done by great men, whose names stand in history like
milestones, marking the march of mankind on the highway of progress. It
was mankind which marched, and still it passed unnoticed and unknown. Of
him history has made no record, but of the milestones only, and has
called them great men. The lofty frame of individual greatness
overshadowed the people, who were ready to follow but not prepared to go
without being led. Humanity and its progress was absorbed by
individualities; because the people which stood low in the valley got
giddy by looking up to the mountain's top, where its leaders stood. It
was the age of childhood for nations. Children cling to the leading
strings as to a necessity, and feel it a benefit to be led.
But the leaders of nations changed soon into kings. Ambition claimed as
a right what merit had gained as a free offering. Arrogance succeeded to
greatness; and out of the child-like attachment for benefits received,
the duty of blind obedience was framed by the iron hand of violence, and
by the craft of impious hypocrisy, degrading everything held for holy by
men--religion itself--into a tool of oppression on earth. It was the era
of uncontroverted despotism, which, with sacrilegious arrogance, claimed
the title of divine rank; and mankind advanced slowly in progress,
because it was not conscious of its own aim. Oppression was taken for a
gloomy fatality.
The scene has changed. Nations have become conscious of their rights and
destiny, and will tolerate no masters, nor will suffer oppression any
longer. The spirit of freedom moves through the air; and remember, that
you are morally somewhat responsible for it, inasmuch as it is your
glorious struggle for independence which was the first upheaving of
mankind's heart roused to self-conscious life. Even by that first effort
she gloriously achieved the national independence of America. Though
gifted with all the blessings of nature's virginal vitality, you would
never have succeeded to achieve this wonderful growth which we see, if
you had employed your conquered national independence merely to take a
new master for the old one.
And mark well, gentlemen! a nation may have a master even if it has no
king--a nation may be called a republic, and yet be not
free--_Wherever centralization exists, there the nation has either
sold or lent, either alienated or delegated its sovereignty_; and
wherever this is done, the nation has a master--and he who has a master
is of course not his own master. Power may be centralized in many--the
centralization by and by will be concentrated in few, as in ancient
Venice, or in one, as in France at the time of the "_Uncle_," some
forty years ago, and again in France, now that the "_Nephew_" has
his bloody reign for a day.
Yes, gentlemen, if that generation of devoted patriots who achieved the
Independence of the United States, had merely changed the old master for
a new one with the name of an Emperor or a King, or of an omnipotent
President, your country were now just something like Brazil or Mexico,
or the Republic of South America, all of them independent, as you know,
and all except Brazil even Republics, and all rich with nature's
blessings, and offering a new home to those who fly from the oppression
of the Old World--and yet all of them old before they were young, and
decrepit before they were strong. Had the founders of your country's
Independence followed this direction which led the rest of America
astray, Cincinnati would be a hamlet yet as it was in Jacob Wetzel's
time; and Ohio, instead of being a first-rate star in the constellation
of your Republic, would be an appendage of neighbouring Eastern
States--a not yet explored desert, marked in the map of America only by
lines of northern latitude and western longitude.
The people, a real sovereign; your institutions securing real freedom,
because founded on the principles of self-government; union to secure
national independence and the position of a power on earth; and all
together, having no master but God; omnipotence not vested in any man,
in any assembly,--and an open field to every honest exertion--because
civil, political, and religious liberty is the common benefit to all,
not limited but by itself (that is, by the unseen, but not unfelt,
influence of self-given law); that is the key of the living wonder which
spreads before my eyes.
Let me recall to your memory a curious fact. It is just a hundred years
ago, that the first trading house upon the Great Miami was built by
daring English adventurers, at a place later known as Laramie's Store,
then the territory of the Twigtwee Indians. The trade house was
destroyed by Frenchmen, who possessed then a whole world on the
continent of America. Well, twenty-four years later, France aided your
America in its struggle for independence; and oh! feel not offended in
your proud power of to-day, when I say that independence would not then
have been achieved without the aid of France.
Since that time, France has been twice a Republic, and changed its
constitutions thirteen times; and, though thirty-six millions strong, it
has lost every foot of land on the continent of America, and at home it
lies prostrated beneath the feet of the most inglorious usurper that
ever dared to raise ambition's bloody seat upon the ruins of liberty.
And your Republic? It has grown a giant of power. And Ohio? out of the
ruins of a trading-house into a mighty commonwealth of two millions of
free and happy men, who shout out with a voice like the thunderstorm, to
the despots of the Old World, "ye shall stop in your ambitious way
before the power of freedom, ready to protect the common laws of all
humanity."
What a glorious triumph of your institutions over the principles of
CENTRALIZED government!
Oh! may all the generations yet unborn, and all the millions who will
yet gather in this New World of the West, which soon will preponderate
in the scale of the Union, where all the west weighed nothing fifty
years ago--may they all ever and ever remember the high instruction
which the Almighty has revealed in this parallel of different results.
Sir, you say that Ohio can show no battle field connected with
recollections of your own glorious revolution. Let me answer, that the
whole West is a monument, and Cincinnati the fair cornice of it. If your
eastern sister States have instructed the world how nations become
independent and free, the West shows to the world what a nation once
independent and really free can become.
Allow me to declare, that by standing before the world as such an
instructive example, you exercise the most effective revolutionary
propaganda; for if the mis-result of French revolutions discourage the
nations from shaking off the 'oppressors' yoke, your victory,--and still
more, your unparalleled prosperity,--has encouraged oppressed nations to
dare what you dared.
Egotists and hypocrites may say that you are not responsible for it; you
have bid nobody to follow you:--and it may be true that you are not
responsible before a tribunal. Still, you are sufficiently free not to
feel offended by a true word; therefore I say you are responsible before
your own conscience, for, your example having started a new doctrine,
the teacher of a new doctrine is morally bound not to forsake his
doctrine when assailed in the person of his disciples.
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