In all these speeches, the ancient and modern alike, with the exception of the speech of Fisher Ames, the inspiring, the controlling sentiment is the sentiment of patriotism,--the claim to continued independence and sovereignty in an existing condition, and the claim to independence and sovereignty on the part of an aspiring people. Burke was animated by a sense of patriotic duty to Britain and by a sense of justice to her colonies in America. Fisher Ames' argumentative speech was an appeal to the sense of justice of the House of Representatives. Of the speeches to which reference has been made, it is to be said that the circumstances in which they had their origin were local, although they may have embraced the affairs of an empire. In the main, the considerations advanced were temporary in their relations to the affairs of mankind. In its very nature patriotism is local, and the considerations by which the sentiment is stimulated relate usually to the conditions and events in the country where the sentiment is evolved. Moreover, a manifestation of the sentiment of patriotism in one people is accompanied usually with a degree of hostility to some other community or nation, and in its excesses it often fosters a disregard for the just rights of others. Nor is the sentiment or sense of justice usually universal in its application. As it is manifested in individuals and communities, it too often embodies a degree of selfishness, from which neither states nor individuals are exempt. In like manner the words "freedom" and "liberty," in their application, have been limited to classes and castes, and to individual communities and states. The earliest and best expression of the universality of the idea of liberty belongs to America, but in America even its practical realization is a recent event. Previous to the nineteenth century, America was the only land in which it was possible to found a state freed from the domination of the church, or to establish a church free from the domination of the state; and in one half of the American continent this degree of freedom does not exist even now, when we approach the twentieth century. Of the great orators of the world, it was Louis Kossuth who first gave to the word "liberty" the largest possible signification. Burke approached the idea, but he seemed not to comprehend its universality. In his oration on Conciliation with America he said: "In Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast multitude of slaves. When this is the case in any part of the world, those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. Not seeing, then, that freedom as in countries where it is a common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, may be united with much abject misery, with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks among them like something that is more noble and liberal."