From the aspect of peace and freedom in which our country so happily
reposes, going on prospering and increasing, "by confidence in
democratic principles, by faith in the people, and by the spirit of
mutual forbearance and charity," the orator turns to that Europe to
which our fathers there looked for succor, now "echoing to the clang of
arms, and hostile legions arrayed for combat."
A tribute to Italy, for the gifts, poured out from her treasures of
art, science, medical skill, and political knowledge, of literature and
philosophy, to all the uses and adornments of human life, introduces a
reference to the Italian Republics of the Middle Ages, which are shown
to have been based on these great principles:--That all authority over
the people emanates from the people,--should return to them at stated
intervals,--and that its holders should be accountable to the people
for its use. "To those Republics," it is added, "we also owe the
practical demonstration of the great truth, that no state can long
prosper or exist where intelligent labor is not held in honor, and that
labor cannot be honorable where it is not free."
Mr. Sumner's defence of democratic republican ideas,--of the fitness of
the European peoples for self-government,--his repulse of those
unbelieving theorists who would consign the French and the Italians to
the eternal doom of oppression,--are manly, powerful, and unanswerable.
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