I beg you to believe in the depth of sensibility with which I have
received the honor you do me, and the honor you do my country. The
similarity of our institutions is such that I come into the presence of
this august body with full appreciation of its dignity and its
significance. I feel that I am in the presence of the great lawmaking
body to which is intrusted, by its representation of the separate states
of Brazil, the preservation of local self-government throughout this
vast empire; so that the people of each one of your twenty states, and
each one of the many states to be erected hereafter, as your population
increases, may govern itself in its local affairs without the oppression
which inevitably results from the absolute rule of a central power,
ignorant of the necessities and of the feelings of each locality; and so
that also, consistently with that local self-government, the nationality
of Brazil shall be preserved and the principle of national power, the
dignity and power of the nation that protects all local self-governments
in their liberty, shall never be decreased. I feel also that I am in the
presence of the body from which must come, not only in the present but
in the great future of Brazil, that conservative force which is so
essential to regulate the action of a democracy. By your constitution,
by the necessities of your existence, it will be your function to
prevent rash and ill-considered action, to see that all the expedients
of government, all the theories that are suggested, are submitted to the
test of practical experience and sound reason.
And so, with the deepest interest in the continued success of the
Brazilian experiment in self-government, I am most deeply impressed with
the honor you have done me. The encomiums which have been passed here
upon my country are such that to know of them must in itself be an
incentive to deserve them. I hope that every word which has been spoken
here about that dear republic from which I come, may go to the knowledge
of every citizen of the United States of America, and may lead him to
feel that it is his duty to see that this good opinion of our sister
republic is justified.
Senator Ruy Barbosa has justly interpreted the meaning of my visit. I
come not merely as the messenger of friendship; I come as that, but not
merely as that. When democratic institutions first found their place in
the protests of the New World against a colonial government that bound
us all hand and foot; when the plain people undertook to govern
themselves without any Heaven-sent superior force to control them, how
gloomy were the prognostications, how unfriendly were the wishes, how
uncomplimentary were the expressions which, upon the other side of the
Atlantic, greeted the new experiment--that we should have rule by the
mob, that disorder and anarchy would ensue, that plain men were
incapable and always would be incapable, of maintaining an orderly and
peaceful government. Lo, how the scene has changed! The conception of
man's capacity to govern himself, gaining year by year credit, belief,
demonstration, in the new fields of virgin lands, north and south, has
been carried back across the Atlantic until the old idea of a necessary
sovereign is shaken to the base. No longer is it man's conception of
government that it must be by a superior force, pressing down what is
bad; but that the pressure shall be from beneath, with all the good
impulses and capacities of human nature pressing upward what is good. I
come here not only to hold out the right hand of friendship to you from
my country, but also to assert in the most positive, the most salient
way the solidarity of republican institutions in the New World, the
similarity of results, the mutual confidence that is felt by my country
in yours, and by yours in mine; to assert before all the world that the
great experiment of free self-government is a success north and south,
the whole New World over. From the realization of this fact--this
certain and indisputable fact--that republican institutions are
successful, will come that confidence which underlies wealth, the
security of property that is the basis of our civilization, the
certainty that the fruits of enterprise will be secure, which is the
incentive to activity, the independence of the people from the hard
stress of poverty--the independence that comes from ample means of
support, and is a condition of growth and enjoyment in life. More than
wealth, more than production, more than trade, more than any material
prosperity, there will come with them learning, universal education,
literature, arts, the charms and graces of life. I would think but
little of my country if it had merely material wealth. I would think but
little of my country if the conception of its people was that we were to
live like the robber baron of the Middle Ages, who merely gathered into
his castle for his own luxury the wealth that he had taken from the
surrounding people.
A land of free institutions, in which wealth and prosperity are made the
basis upon which to build up the arts, graces, and virtues of life, and
in which there is a noble and generous sympathy with every one laboring
in the same cause--that, indeed, is a country of which one may be proud;
that is a country which is the natural result of free institutions.
So I come to you to say: Let us know each other better; let us aid each
other in the great work of advancing civilization; let the United States
of North America and the United States of Brazil join hands, not in
formal written treaties of alliance, but in the universal sympathy and
confidence and esteem of their peoples; join hands to help humanity
forward along the paths which we have been so happy as to tread. Let us
help each other to grow in wisdom and in spirit, as we have grown in
wealth and prosperity.
Mr. Chairman, my poor words are all too ineffective to express the depth
of sentiment and height of hope that I experience here. I believe this
is not an idle dream; I believe it is not merely the kindly expression
or enthusiasm of the moment, but that after this day there will remain
among both our peoples a sentiment which will be of incalculable benefit
to the great mass of mankind, which shall help these two great nations
to preserve and promote the rule of ordered liberty, of peace and
justice, and of that spirit, which underlies all our Christian
civilization, the spirit of humanity, higher than the spirit of
nationality, more precious than material wealth, indispensable to the
true fulfillment of the mission of liberty.