o do justice to my feelings, must be strongly expressed.
Probably there is no country where the means of temporal happiness are
so generally diffused, notwithstanding the constant flow of emigrants
from the old world; and, I believe there is no country where the means
of religious and moral improvement are so abundantly provided--where
facilities of education are more within the reach of all--or where there
is less of extreme poverty and destitution.

As morals have an intimate connection with politics, I do not think it
out of place here to record my conviction, that the great principle of
popular control, which is carried out almost to its full extent in the
free states, is not only beautiful in theory, but that it is found to
work well in practice. It is true that disgraceful scenes of mob
violence and lynch-law have occurred; but perhaps not more frequently
than popular outbreaks in Great Britain; while, generally, the supremacy
of law and order have been restored, without troops, or special
commissions, or capital punishments. It is also true, that these
occurrences are, for the most part, directly traceable, not to the
celebrated declaration of the equal and inalienable right of all men to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which is the fundamental
principle of the constitution; but to the flagrant violation of that
principle in the persons of the colored population, of whom those in
most of the free states are actually or virtually deprived of political
rights; and the rest, constituting a majority of the population in some
of the Southern States, are held in abject slavery. The corruptions and
disorders that obscure the bright example of the American people, and
detract from the estimation in which their institutions and policy would
otherwise be held, generally spring from this source. So long as slavery
and distinction of color exist, America will always be pointed at with
the finger of scorn, for her flagrant violation of all truth and
consistency. But let us not forget that this odious institution is the
disgraceful legacy of a monarchy--that it is no necessary effect of
republican institutions, but the reverse. Our quarrel, therefore, is not
with the declaration of rights, but that this celebrated declaration
should be regarded, in the instance of one class in the community, as a
mere rhetorical flourish, and should thus be deprived of its legitimate
practical effect.

The great feature of the po