Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 6.djvu/182

THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS you; he bows to it; he sees it engraved in capitals on the front of the political fabric. But if you tell him of Protestant ascendency, or Protestant exclusion, he asks in vain where its title is to be found; he looks in vain for it in the elements of our law or its traditions, in the commentaries of its sage expositors, in the Reformation, the Revolution, or the Union—he sees in it nothing but insult and contumacy; and he demands, in the name of the laws, and in the spirit of the Constitution, that he may be no longer its victim. 172