Countrymen, bend and invoke Mercy for us blasphemers, For that we spat on these marvelous folk, Nations of darers and dreamers, Scions of singers and seers, Our peers, and more than our peers. “Rabble and refuse,” we name them And “scum o’ the earth,” to shame them. Mercy for us of the few, young years, Of the culture so callow and crude, Of the hands so grasping and rude, The lips so ready for sneers At the sons of our ancient more-than-peers. Mercy for us who dare despise Men in whose loins our Homer lies; Mothers of men who shall bring to us The glory of Titian, the grandeur of Huss; Children in whose frail arms shall rest Prophets and singers and saints of the West. Newcomers all from the eastern seas, Help us incarnate dreams like these. Forget, and forgive, that we did you wrong. Help us to father a nation, strong In the comradeship of an equal birth, In the wealth of the richest bloods of earth. LIBERTY AND UNION ONE AND INSEPARABLE BY DANIEL WEBSTER I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union that we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and, although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this government, whose thought should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union may be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it should be broken up and destroyed.