e the citizens of the United States cease to be Americans, and
become again English, Irish, German, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Swedish,
French--America would soon cease to be what it is now--freedom elevated
to the proud position of a power on earth.

But while I hope that all the people of the United States will never
become anything but Americans; and that even its youngest adopted sons,
though fresh with sweet home recollections, will know here no South, no
North, no East and no West--nothing but the whole country, the common
nationality of freedom--in a word, America; still I also know that blood
is blood--that the heart of the son must beat at the contemplation of
his mother's sufferings. These were the motives of my confident hope.
And here in this place I have the happy right to say, God the Almighty
is with me; my hopes are about to be realized. Sir, it is a gratifying
view to see how the generous sympathy of individuals for the cause which
I respectfully plead is rising into Public Opinion. But nowhere had I
the happy lot to see this more clearly expressed than in this great
commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the mighty "_keystone_ State" of the
Union. The people of Harrisburg spoke first: no city before had so
distinctly articulated the public sympathy into acknowledged principles.
It has framed the sympathy of generous instinct into a political shape.
I will for ever remember it with fervent gratitude. Then came the
Metropolis--a hope and a consolation by its very name to the
oppressed--the sanctuary of American Independence, where the very bells
speak prophecy--which is now sheltering more inhabitants than all
Pennsylvania did, when, seventy-five years ago, the prophetic bell of
Independence Hall announced to the world that free America was born;
which now, with the voice of thunder, will, I hope, tell the world that
the doubtful life of that child has unfolded itself into a mighty power
on earth. Yes, after Harrisburg, the metropolis spoke, a flourishing
example of freedom's self-developing energy; and after the metropolis,
now so mighty a centre of nations, and it ally of international
law--next came Pittsburg, the immense manufacturing workshop, alike
memorable for its moral power and its natural advantages, which made it
a link with the great valley of the West, a cradle of a new world, which
is linked in its turn to the old world by boundless agricultural
interests. And after the people of Pennsylvania have th