Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/300

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS As there is no possibility of establishing the monarchy, as no candidate acceptable to all can be found, it is necessary, it is indispensable to get rid of the suspense, and I say that we should establish a republic. Have you not said that the forms of government are accidental? Gentlemen, you know the republic I want. It is a federal republic. I shall awaysalways [sic] defend the federal republic. I am a federal, but, deputies, understand one thing: the republic is a form of government which admits many conditions, and which has many grades. From the Republic of Venice to that of Switzerland there is an immense scale. Adjoining Mexico, where Church and States are separated, there is Guatemala, where the clergy have great power. Close to the decentralized and federal Argentine Republic is the Chilian Republic, another decentralized country enjoying great prosperity, its paper money being quoted in all the markets of Europe as high as that of England.

Consequently, amid this great affliction, this trouble, this unstable equilibrium, which surrounds you, you can establish a form of government which is of the people and for the people, a form in harmony with the institutions you have proclaimed, and with the sentiment which all of you guard in the bottom of your hearts.

Have you not observed in history the inability of an assembly or any other power to establish a form of government in conflict with great 260