“Our nation’s future—shall it be perpetual? Shall the expanding circle of its beneficent influence extend, widening onward to the farthest shore of time? Shall its sun rise higher and yet higher, and shine with ever-brightening luster? Or, has it passed the zenith of its glory, and left us to sit in the lengthening shadows of its coming night? Shall power from beyond the sea snatch the proud banner from us? _Shall civil dissension or intestine strife rend the fair fabric of the Union?_ The rulers of the Old World have long and impatiently looked to see fulfilled the prophecy of its downfall. Such philosophers as Coleridge, Alison and Macaulay have, severally, set forth the reasons for this prophecy—the chief of which is, that the element of stability in our Government will sooner or later bring upon it certain destruction. This is truly a grave charge. But whether instability is an element of destruction or of safety, depends wholly upon the sources whence that instability springs. “The granite hills are not so changeless and abiding as the restless sea. Quiet is no certain pledge of permanence and safety. Trees may flourish and flowers may bloom upon the quiet mountain side, while silently the trickling rain-drops are filling the deep cavern behind its rocky barriers, which, by and by, in a single moment, shall hurl to wild ruin its treacherous peace. It is true, that in our land there is no such outer quiet, no such deceitful repose. Here society is a restless and surging sea. The roar of the billows, the dash of the wave, is forever in our ears. Even the angry hoarseness of breakers is not unheard. But there is an understratum of deep, calm sea, which the breath of the wildest tempest can never reach. There is, deep down in the hearts of the American people, a strong and abiding love of our country and its liberty, which no surface-storms of passion can ever shake. That kind of instability which arises from a free movement and interchange of position among the members of society, which brings one drop to glisten for a time in the crest of the highest wave, and then gives place to another, while it goes down to mingle again with the millions below; such instability is the surest pledge of permanence. On such instability the eternal fixedness of the universe is based. Each planet, in its circling orbit, returns to the goal of its departure, and on the balance of these wildly-rolling spheres God has planted the broad base of His mighty works. So the hope of our national perpetuity rests upon that perfect individual freedom, which shall forever keep up the circuit of perpetual change. God forbid that the waters of our national life should ever settle to the dead level of a waveless calm. It would be the stagnation of death—the ocean grave of individual liberty.”