for State-rights in the Federal Government
of America, and in its several States, will become an instructive
example for universal toleration, forbearance, and justice to the future
States, and Republics of Europe. Upon this basis those mischievous
questions of language-nationalities will be got rid of, which cunning
despotism has raised in Europe to murder liberty. Smaller States will
find security in the principle of federative union, while they will
preserve their national freedom by the principle of sovereign
self-government; and while larger States, abdicating the principle of
centralization will cease to be a blood-field to unscrupulous usurpation
and a tool to the ambition of wicked men, municipal institutions will
ensure the development of local elements; freedom, formerly an abstract
political theory, will be brought to every municipal hearth; and out of
the welfare and contentment of all parts will flow happiness, peace, and
security for the whole.

That is my confident hope. Then will the fluctuations of Germany's fate
at once subside. It will become the heart of Europe, not by melting
North Germany into a Southern frame, or the South into a Northern; not
by absorbing historical peculiarities into a centralized omnipotence;
not by mixing all in one State, but by federating several sovereign
States into a Union like yours.

Upon a similar basis will take place the national regeneration of
Sclavonic States, and not upon the sacrilegious idea of Panslavism,
which means the omnipotence of the Czar. Upon a similar basis shall we
see fair Italy independent and free. Not unity, but _union_ will
and must become the watchword of national members, hitherto torn rudely
asunder by provincial rivalries, out of which a crowd of despots and
common servitude arose. In truth it will be a noble joy to your great
Republic to feel that the moral influence of your glorious example has
worked this happy development in mankind's destiny; nor have I the
slightest doubt of the efficacy of that example.

But there is one thing indispensable to it, without which there is no
hope for this happy issue. It is, that the oppressed nations of Europe
become the masters of their future, free to regulate their own domestic
concerns. And to this nothing is wanted but to have that "fair play" to
all, _for_ all, which you, sir, in your toast, were pleased to
pronounce as a right of my nation, alike sanctioned by the law of
nations as by the dic