I want to read a very brief extract from a most notable paper--one that was to-day in the Senate at Washington read from the desk by its presiding officer--the "Farewell Address of Washington;" and while it is true that I cannot quote or find in the writings of Washington anything specifically referring to ballot-box fraud, to tissue ballots, to intimidation, to forged tally-sheets [cheers], for the reason that these things had not come in his day to disturb the administration of the Government, yet in the comprehensiveness of the words he uttered, like the comprehensive declarations of the Holy Book, we may find admonition and guidance, and even with reference to a condition of things that his pure mind could have never contemplated. Washington said: "Liberty is indeed little less than a name where the Government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of factions, to confine each member of society within the limits prescribed by the law, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of persons and property." If I had read that to a Democratic meeting they would have suspected that it was an extract from some Republican speech. [Laughter.] My countrymen, this Government is that which I love to think of as my country; for not acres, or railroads, or farm products, or bulk meats, or Wall Street, or all combined, are the country that I love. It is the institution, the form of government, the frame of civil society, for which that flag stands, and which we love to-day. [Applause.] It is what Mr. Lincoln so tersely, yet so felicitously, described as a government of the people, by the people, and for the people; a government of the people, because they instituted it--the Constitution reads, "We, the people, have ordained;" by the people, because it is in all its departments administered by them; for the people, because it states as its object of supreme attainment the happiness, security and peace of the people that dwell under it. [Applause.]