“What if those six noble volumes of his were obliterated from the roll of American literature and American eloquence! What if those great speeches, recently issued in a single compendious volume, had no existence! What if those consummate defenses of the Constitution and the Union had never been uttered, and their instruction and inspiration had been lost to us during the fearful ordeal to which that Constitution and that Union have since been subjected? Are we quite sure that we should have had that Constitution as it was, and the Union as it is, to be fought for, if the birth we are commemorating had never occurred—if that bright Northern Star had never gleamed above the hills of New Hampshire? Let it be, if you please, that its light was not always serene and steady. Let it be that mist and clouds sometimes gathered over its disk, and hid its guiding rays from many a wistful eye. Say even, if you will, that to some eyes it seemed once to be shooting madly from its sphere. Make every deduction which his bitterest enemies have ever made for any alleged deviation from the course which he had marked out for it by others, or which it seemed to have marked out for itself, in its path across the sky. Still, still there is radiance and glory enough left, as we contemplate its whole golden track, to make us feel and acknowledge that it had no fellow in our firmament.” THE END. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. All other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged. Italics are represented thus _italic_. End of Project Gutenberg's From Farm Boy to Senator, by Horatio Alger Jr.