ter events: it is destined to be
the seat of civil liberty. The success of our institutions in
withstanding the awful trial to which they have just been subjected,
indicates the existence of providential designs toward our favored
country, not to be thwarted by any mortal agency at home or abroad. Such
a combination of hostile elements, so powerful and determined, has never
before assailed any political structure without overthrowing it. The
failure in the present instance shows that our great destiny will be
accomplished in the face of all obstacles, however insurmountable they
may appear to be.

Providence always accomplishes its ends by appropriate
instrumentalities; and in our case there are natural causes adequate to
the great result which seems to be inevitable. In North America the
principle of equal rights and of unobstructed individual progress has
become the fundamental law of society. It is needless to trace the
origin and growth of this principle; but its operation has been so
powerful and productive, so fully imbued with moral and intellectual
power, so solid and safe as a basis of national organization, as shown
in the marvellous history of the United States, that no uncongenial
principle is capable of resisting it, or even of maintaining an
existence by its side. This is true not only with regard to that
antagonistic principle which is now desperately but hopelessly waging a
suicidal war within the bosom of the great republic; but it is equally
true with regard to that insidious germ of despotism, which threatens to
push its way through the soil of a neighboring country, displacing the
free institutions which have long and sadly languished amid the civil
wars of a most unhappy people. The same vigorous vitality which will
renew the growth of our national authority and maintain it in the Union,
will, at the same time, establish its predominant influence on the
continent. Having overborne and rooted out every opposing principle
within the boundaries of our own imperial domain, its growth will be so
majestic that every unfriendly influence which may possibly have secured
a feeble foothold in its vicinity during its perilous struggle, will
soon wither in the shadow of its greatness and disappear from around it.
Foreign nations may exert their sinister authority in the Old World, and
plant their peculiar institutions in that congenial soil, with their
accustomed success; but no amount of skilful manipulation w