Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/46

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS its authority with the world. If, in our case, the representative system ultimately fail, popu- lar governments must be pronounced impossible. No combination of circumstances more favor- able to the experiment can ever be expected to occur. The last hopes of mankind, therefore, rest with us; and if it should be proclaimed that our example had become an argument against the experiment, the knell of popular liberty would be sounded throughout the earth. These are excitements to duty; but they are not suggestions of doubt. Our history and our condition, all that is gone before us, and all that surrounds us, authorize the belief, that popular governments, tho subject to occasional variations, in form perhaps not always for the better, may yet, in their general char- acter, be as durable and permanent as other systems. We know, indeed, that in our country any other is impossible. The principle of free government adheres to the American soil. It is bedded in it, immovable as its mountains. And let the sacred obligations which have devolved on this generation, and on us, sink deep into our hearts. Those who established our liberty and our government are daily drop- ping from among us. The great trust now de- scends to new hands. Let us apply ourselves to that which is presented to us, as our ap- propriate object. We can win no laurels in a war for independence. Earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are there 36