That Is Not What We
Desire To See Established Among Ourselves Or Established Among
Others.
Safety from foreign foes, respect from foreign foes and
friends, security under the law and security from the law,
This is
what we expect from our government; and if I add to this that we
expect to have these good things provided at a fairly moderate cost,
I think I have exhausted the list of our requirements. I hardly
think that we even yet expect the government to take the first steps
in the rudimentary education of the people. We certainly do not
expect it to make the people religious, or to keep them honest.
And if the Americans with their form of government have done for
themselves all that we expect our government to do for us; if they
have with some fair approach to general excellence obtained respect
abroad and security at home from foreign foes; if they have made
life, liberty, and property safe under their laws, and have also so
written and executed their laws as to secure their people from legal
oppression, - I maintain that they are entitled to a verdict in their
favor, let us object as we may to universal suffrage, to four years'
Presidents and four years' presidential cabinets. What, after all,
matters the theory or the system, whether it be king or president,
universal suffrage or ten-pound voter, so long as the people be free
and prosperous? King and president, suffrage by poll and suffrage
by property, are but the means.
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