Standing among the statutes at large, with but a page between, is the proclamation of Thomas Jefferson, thundering against the aggressions of Great Britain, and the proclamation of John Adams, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against his own countrymen for resisting the plunder of an unjust revenue tax. These two proclamations, looming up in the horizon of American history like the Mountains of Blessing and Cursing, are the embodiment of the two spirits which are contending for the mastery of this nation--the one the source of our independence gained by a foreign war and the territory on this side of the Mississippi, and of our independence maintained by a foreign war and the territory beyond the Mississippi--the other the source of our national debt in its monstrous cumulation, of Federal extravagance, of sectional expenditures of public funds, of class legislation for protected industries, of unequal taxes, and of a frightful civil war, unlawfully begun to collect them. "To do justice" is the only way to "insure domestic tranquillity." A government is "strong" only when its foundations are laid deep in the affections and best interests of the people who support it and for whose benefit it was created. God's government is strong and will last forever because it is based upon the eternal principle of mutual affinity. * * * * * Through the long mystery of prehistoric ages the spirit of God's love brooded over the desolation of a void and formless world; continents laden with life were born out of the womb of the great deep--Life which still lives in the love of its Infinite Author--and the great deep which still with measured pulse is beating out the changes of our times and booming in our ears the faith that we, too, are somewhere in the sweep of Nature's mighty moving heart. So, statesmen and philosophers, deeply pondering in love of country over the dreary waste of failures and disasters lying thick along the track of History and Experience, have wrought out for us wise laws and constitutions, have rescued from the "bottomless deep of theory and possibility" the institutions under which we live, but the virtue to interpret and maintain them is not transmitted nor transmissible--that we must gain, as they did, from Heaven. * * * * * Sloping in a long, gradual sweep of undulating hills and valleys, overspread with the silver network of her myriad streams, from her lofty green-bannered battlements, erected by God, down to her shifting shore, where Hatteras lies in wait for her enemies by sea, North Carolina spreads out the peaceful lap of her bounteous land for her children and for all who cherish her.