not very well dispense with our
wheat and corn and the oil from the earth and the cotton to weave into
those delicate tissues with which they clothe the world. [Applause.] So
that, after all, these superficial barriers of customs duties do not
really obstruct our commerce; and even if they have too much of our
pork, as would seem to be the notion at present, we have no desire to
dispense with their wines. [Laughter.]

But there are some other interchanges between nations besides those of
commerce in the raw material or in the products of industry. If we could
make more of a moral interchange with the French; if we could take some
of the moral sunlight which shines upon that great nation; if we could
be more cheerful, more gay, more debonair, and if they could take from
us some of the superfluous ice which we produce morally as well as
naturally, and some of that cold resistance against the inflammation of
enthusiasm which sometimes raises a conflagration among their citizens
at home, we have no tariff on either side that would interfere in the
blending and intercommunication of the moral resources of both nations,
that shall make us more and more one people, in laws, liberties and
national glory, and in all the passions that guide and animate the
conduct of nations. [Applause.]

I am happy to announce myself to you, gentlemen, what I am vain enough
to suppose you would not suspect, that I am a contemporary of Lafayette.
As a Boston schoolboy, I stood in the ranks at Boston when Lafayette in
1825 passed with a splendid cortege along the malls of Boston Common. I
had the pleasure, as a descendant of one of his Revolutionary friends,
to be presented to him personally, and to hear him say that he well
remembered his old friend, my grandfather. [Cheers.] This pleasing
courtesy, it may be said, was all French politeness; but I can say to
these Frenchmen that whether they believe one another at home or not, we
always believe them in this country. [Applause.]

And now your toast desires that this friendship, thus beginning and
continued, shall be perpetual. Who is to stop it? No power but ourselves
and yourselves, sir (turning to the French Minister), can interrupt it.
What motive have you--what motive have we--what sentiment, but that on
either side would be dishonor to the two nations--can ever breathe a
breath to spoil its splendor and its purity? [Applause.] And, sir, your
munificence and your affection is again to be imp