Imagine to yourself a Demosthenes, addressing the most illustrious assembly in the world, upon a point whereon the fate of the most illustrious of nations depended. How awful such a meeting! How fast the subject! Is man possessed of talents adequate to the great occasion? Adequate! Yes, superior. By the power of eloquence, the augustness of the assembly is lost in the dignity of the orator; and the importance of the subject, for a while superseded, by the admiration of his talents.

With what strength of argument, with what powers of the fancy, with what emotions of the heart, doth he assault and subjugate the whole man; and at once, captivate his reason, his imagination, and his passions. To effect this, must be the utmost effort of the most improved state of human nature. Not a faculty that he possesses is here unemployed; not a faculty that he possesses but is here exerted to its highest pitch. All his internal powers are at work; all his external, testify their energies.

Within, the memory, the fancy, the judgment, the passions, are all busy. Without, every muscle, every nerve, is exerted; not a feature, not a limb, but speaks. The organs of the body, attuned to the exertions of the mind, through the kindred organs of the hearers, instantaneously vibrate those energies from soul to soul.

Notwithstanding the diversity of minds in such a multitude, by the lightning of eloquence, they are melted into one mass; the whole assembly, actuated in one and the same way, become, as it were, but one man, and have but one voice. The universal cry is—“let us move against Philip—let us fight for our liberties—LET US CONQUER OR DIE!”

My Fellow Citizens: No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good, who has blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and happiness.

To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of our natural life in a new continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few of the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our existence against any alien race; and yet our life has called for the vigor and effort without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither away.

Under such conditions it would be our own fault if we failed, and the success which we have had in the past, the success which we confidently believe the future will bring, should cause in us no feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep and abiding realization of all that life has offered us; a full acknowledgment of the responsibility which is ours; and a fixed determination to show that under a free government a mighty people can thrive best, alike as regard the things of the body and the things of the soul. Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves—and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relation to the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as becomes a people with such responsibilities.

Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words but in our deeds that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights.

But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wronging others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it right, and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts rightly and justly should ever have cause to fear, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.

Our relations with the other powers of the world are important; but still more important are our relations among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population, and in power, as a nation has seen during a century and a quarter of its national life, is inevitably accompanied by a like growth in the problems which are ever before every nation that rises to greatness. Power invariably means both responsibility and danger. Our forefathers faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We now face other perils the very existence of which it was impossible that they should foresee.

Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the half century are felt in every fiber of our social and political being. Never before have men tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a continent under the forms of a democratic republic. The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, also have brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial centers.

Upon the success of our experiment much depends—not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause of free self-government throughout the world will rock to its foundations, and therefore our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is today, and to the generations yet unborn.

There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us, nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.

Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers, who founded and preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the free men who compose it.

But we have faith that we shall not prove false to memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work; they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged for our children’s children.

To do so we must show, not merely in great crisis, but in every-day affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of course, of hardihood, and endurance, and, above all, the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington; which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.

Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen: In that long ago, that age just following the period when darkness covered the face of the earth, that age when God dispelled that darkness by issuing his fiat, “Let there be light,” we are told in the Good Book that God followed the birth of the light with the creation of man, that He breathed the breath of life into his nostrils and that man became thereby a living soul. With the entrance of divine breath into the senseless clay, with the awakening of the soul of man, there came the realization of three spiritual facts: the belief in God, the love of home, and the devotion to country.

Nowhere in this vast universe does a conscious being exist who does not, in his heart, believe in God. Traverse the wilds of darkest Africa, enter the densest jungles of that great continent, and you will find that all its human inhabitants have some conception of God. In the remotest isles of the Pacific, among the cannibals who devour the flesh of their victims, is found evidence of the belief in the existence of God, although the evidence may be nothing more than the setting up of a symbol of wood or stone that typifies to the poor savage the Being he worships. Even the blasphemer, who, with the words of his mouth, denies the Almighty who created him, will, in his secret soul, hear the still small voice, the reflex of that great Creator, whisper unto him, “I am the Lord thy God.”

The love of home is universal. Be that home a hovel or a palace, if the heart be there, happiness will be its companion. Love of home often exists where the home is only in the fancy, only in the heart that longs and hungers for its blessings. That sweet singer who sang of “Home, sweet home” was a wanderer on the face of the earth, and possessed that home only in his dreams. No matter how pomp and power may elevate us, no matter how our erring feet may carry us astray, still in our hearts will echo the refrain:

’Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

As we are gathered within this palatial building, around these well-laden tables, under the splendor of these electric lamps, how many of you at the sound of the word “Home” think of the little cottage perched upon the hill, or nestling down in the valley, where, seated at the plain wooden table, the room faintly lighted by a tallow candle, you have eaten your humble meal, blessed by the spirit that ever sanctifies the home? How many of you at this moment are, in fancy, back in the dear old county of Greene? How many of you trace the winding brook climb the hills, till the fields, or sit within the holy confines of the House of God, humble in its man-made structure but magnificent with the glory of His presence?

Home is a thought, a dream, a wish, the longing of the soul for the attainment of the heaven upon earth; and because man keeps before him the vision of what he would have his home, and sees not the materiality of its reality, he conceives his home, no matter where it may be placed, to be the best on earth. That beautiful writer, weak man, and luckless wanderer, Oliver Goldsmith, thus expresses the idea I would convey to you:

But where to find that happiest spot below
Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shudd’ring tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own.
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease:
The naked negro, panting at the Line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
Basks in their glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot’s boast where’er he roam,
His first, best country, ever is at home.

What does the word country signify? It means the same to the Russian on the frozen Volga; the German on the castled Rhine; the Irish on the shores of the River Lee, listening to “those bells of Shandon”; to the English on the Thames, that little stream pregnant with the history of a world; and to the American by the shores of the Hudson, the Columbia or the Mississippi. To all men, in all climes, “my country” means the land of my fathers, or the land of my choice; the place of sacred memories, of strong endeavors and of fervent hopes. Be that country the rock-ribbed land of Scotland, the sands of Africa, the vine-clad hills of France, the plains, the valleys and the mountains of America, it is “my country” to her sons and daughters. No matter what may be the language spoken, no matter what may the natural formation of the landscape, be it Holland with her dykes and ditches or Switzerland with her home in the clouds, no matter what may be the color of her children, be they white, yellow, black or brown, to them she is their mother, and they adore her.

All this and more “our country” means to us Americans. She means more to us than most lands can mean to their children, because she offers us greater opportunities for advancement in education, more religious, social and political liberty, and instills into us an appreciation of the necessity of working for the uplifting of mankind.

While laboring to uplift ourselves and our fellows, we should keep ever in mind the first tenth of that Decalogue given to the children of Israel for their guidance and government, and which is as necessary to our national preservation as it was to their national formation. That commandment states “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me”; and wherever that divine order was broken, the peoples so breaking it, went down to destruction. When Athens turned from her high ideals of progress and liberty she became the vassal of Macedonia and passed out of existence as an independent state. When the Emperor Augustus mounted the throne of the world-power of Rome, the people of that vast empire were slaves to sensuality and luxury, and from that moment, when her greatness appeared fixed for all times, her decline began. Let America pause and ponder as she stands on the brink of that gulf wherein lie buried Israel, Assyria, Carthage, Greece, and Rome, for unless she turns from the false god Mammon, and returns to the worship of the Lord God, she will as surely be plunged into the bottomless pit as were the nations that preceded her in wealth and power and which she is imitating by bowing down to and worshiping the golden calf. Let us keep before our country the lights of truth and justice that they may guide her from this threatening peril on to that upward and onward path leading to the holy of holies wherein sits enthroned the one true God—the God of Equality and of Love.

It is well to blend God, Home and Country, because the belief in all three makes the believer, man or woman, the patriot and the child of God. Take God out of the home and what have we? A shelter for the body, perhaps, but a wilderness for the spirit. Take God out of the country and what have we? A ship of state without a compass whereby to direct its course. Therefore, if either love of God or love of home fails to exist in the hearts of the citizens of any land, that part of the earth’s surface will be their habitation but it will fail to be their country. When the patriot thinks of the nation he loves he does not picture it as so much land, so much water, so many mountains or so many plains. No, he sees it as he sees his flag, symbolical of all that is dear, holy and true. It is the spirit of our flag that we love. It is the spirit of God and the spirit of Home that make us love our Country. Let us look to hear as our mother, let us be to her faithful and loving children, and may she be the better for having nurtured us in her arms.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Our Country. God grant she may always stand for the fulfillment of His word.

Mr. President, there are those who say that the affairs of Cuba are not the affairs of the United States, who insist that we can stand idly by and see that island devastated and depopulated, its business interests destroyed, its commercial intercourse with us cut off, its people starved, degraded, and enslaved. It may be the naked legal right of the United States to stand thus idly by.

I have the legal right to pass along the street and see a helpless dog stamped into the earth under the heels of a ruffian. I can pass by and say that is not my dog. I can sit in my comfortable parlor with my loved ones gathered about me, and through my plate glass window see a fiend outraging a helpless woman nearby, and I can legally say this is no affair of mine—it is not happening on my premises; and I can turn away and take my little ones in my arms, and, with the memory of their sainted mother in my heart, look up to the motto on the wall and read, “God bless our home.”

But if I do, I am a coward and a cur unfit to live, and, God knows, unfit to die. And yet I cannot protect the dog nor save the woman without the exercise of force.

We cannot intervene and save Cuba without the exercise of force, and force means war; war means blood. The lowly Nazarene on the shores of Galilee preached the divine doctrine of love, “Peace on earth, good will toward men.” Not peace on earth at the expense of liberty and humanity. Not good will toward men who despoil, enslave, degrade, and starve to death their fellow men. I believe in the doctrine of Christ. I believe in the doctrine of peace; but, Mr. President, men must have liberty before there can come abiding peace.

Intervention means force. Force means war. War means blood. But it will be God’s force. When has a battle for humanity and liberty ever been won except by force? What barricade of wrong, injustice, and oppression has ever been carried except by force?

Force compelled the signature of unwilling royalty to the great Magna Carta; force put life into the Declaration of Independence and made effective the Emancipation Proclamation; force beat with naked hands upon the iron gateway of the Bastille and made reprisal in one awful hour for centuries of kingly crime; force waved the flag of revolution over Bunker Hill and marked the snows of Valley Forge with blood-stained feet; force held the broken line at Shiloh, climbed the flame-swept hill at Chattanooga, and stormed the clouds on Lookout Heights; force marched with Sherman to the sea, rode with Sheridan in the valley of the Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory at Appomattox; force saved the Union, kept the stars in the flag, made “niggers” men. The time for God’s force has come again. Let the impassioned lips of American patriots once more take up the song:

Before you can adjudge a fact, you must believe it—not suspect it, or imagine it, or fancy it, but believe it—and it is impossible to impress the human mind with such a reasonable and certain belief, as is necessary to be impressed, before a Christian man can adjudge his neighbor to the smallest penalty, much less to the pains of death, without having such evidence as a reasonable mind will accept of as the infallible test of truth. And what is that evidence? Neither more nor less than that which the Constitution has established in the courts for the general administration of justice; namely, that the evidence convince the jury, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the criminal intention, constituting the crime, existed in the mind of the man upon trial, and was the mainspring of his conduct. The rules of evidence, as they are settled by law, and adopted in its general administration, are not to be overruled or tampered with. They are found in the charities of religion—in the philosophy of nature—in the truth of history—and in the experience of common life; and whoever ventures rashly to depart from them, let him remember that it will be meted to him in the same measure, and that both God and man will judge him according.

These are arguments addressed to your reasons and your consciences; not to be shaken in upright minds by any precedent—for no precedents can sanctify injustice; if they could, every human right would long ago have been extinct upon the earth. If the state trials in bad times are to be searched for precedents, what murders may you not commit—what law of humanity may you not trample upon—what rule of justice may you not violate—and what maxim of wise policy may you not abrogate and confound? If precedents in bad times are to be implicitly followed, why should we have heard any evidence at all? You might have convicted without any evidence; for many have been so convicted—and, in this manner, murdered—even by acts of Parliament. If precedents in bad times are to be followed, why should the Lords and Commons have investigated these charges, and the Crown have put them into this course of judicial trial? since, without such a trial, and even after an acquittal upon me, they might have attained all the prisoners by act of Parliament: they did so in the case of Lord Strafford.

There are precedents, therefore, for all such things, but such precedents as could not for a moment survive the times of madness and distraction which gave them birth: but which, as soon as the spurs of the occasion were blunted, were repealed and execrated even by Parliaments which (little as I may think of the present) ought not be compared with it—Parliaments sitting in the darkness of former times—in the night of freedom—before the principles of government were developed, and before the constitution became fixed. The last of these precedents, and all the proceedings upon it, were ordered to be taken off the file and burnt, so the intent that the same might no longer be visible to after ages; an order dictated, no doubt, by a pious tenderness for national honor, and meant as a charitable covering for the crimes of our fathers. But it was a sin against posterity—it was a treason against society; for, instead of commanding them to be burnt, they should rather have directed them to be blazoned in large characters upon the walls of our Courts of Justice, that, like the characters deciphered by the prophet of God to the Eastern tyrant, they might enlarge and blacken in your sights, to terrify you from acts of injustice.