But a few days afterwards I went to visit a friend in the country, a modest man, with a quiet country home. It was just a simple, unpretentious house, set about with great trees and encircled in meadow and field rich with the promise of harvest; the fragrance of the pink and the hollyhock in the front yard was mingled with the aroma of the orchard and the garden, and the resonant clucking of poultry and the hum of bees. Inside was quiet, cleanliness, thrift and comfort. Outside there stood my friend, the master—a simple, independent, upright man, with no mortgage on his roof, no lien on his growing crops—master of his land and master of himself. There was his old father, an aged and trembling man, but happy in the heart and home of his son. And, as he started to enter his home, the hand of the old man went down on the young man’s shoulder, laying there the unspeakable blessing of an honored and honorable father, and ennobling it with the knighthood of the fifth commandment. And as we approached the door the mother came, a happy smile lighting up her face, while with the rich music of her heart she bade her husband and her son welcome to their home. Beyond was the housewife, busy with her domestic affairs, the loving helpmate of her husband. Down the lane came the children after the cows, singing sweetly, as like birds they sought the quiet of their nest. So the night came down on that house, falling gently as the wing from an unseen dove. And the old man, while a startled bird called from the forest and the trees thrilled with the cricket’s cry, and the stars were falling from the sky, called the family around him and took the Bible from the table and called them to their knees. The little baby hid in the folds of its mother’s dress while he closed the record of that day by calling down God’s blessing on that simple home. While I gazed, the vision of the marble Capitol faded; forgotten were its treasuries and its majesty; and I said: “Surely here in the homes of the people lodge at last the strength and the responsibility of this government, the hope and the promise of this Republic.” My friends, that is the democracy in the South; that is the democratic doctrine we preach; a doctrine, sir, that is writ above our hearthstones. We aim to make our homes, poor as they are, self-respecting and independent. We try to make them temples of refinement, in which our daughters may learn that woman’s best charm and strength is her gentleness and her grace, and temples of liberty in which our sons may learn that no power can justify and no treasure repay for the surrender of the slightest right of a free individual American citizen.