(_Cheers._) Our whole country would have been a camp, we
should have risen to the magnitude of the contest, and all who could
bear arms would have taken the field. We know, as Americans, that our
national unity is the essential condition of our existence. Without it
we should be disintegrated into sections, States, counties, and cities,
and ruin and anarchy would reign supreme. (_Cheers._) No, the Lakes can
never be separated from the Gulf, the Atlantic from the Pacific, the
source from the mouth of the Mississippi, nor the sons of New England
from the home of their kindred in the great West. (_Cheers._) But, above
all, the entire valley of the Mississippi was ordained by God as the
residence of a united people. Over every acre of its soil, and over
every drop of its waters, must forever float the banner of the Union
(_loud applause_), and all its waters, as they roll on together to the
Gulf, proclaim that what 'God has joined together' man shall never 'put
asunder.' (_Loud cheers._) The nation's life blood courses this vast
arterial system; and to sever it is death. No line of latitude or
longitude shall ever separate the mouth from the centre or sources of
the Mississippi. All the waters of the imperial river, from their
mountain springs and crystal fountains, shall ever flow in commingling
currents to the Gulf, uniting ever more, in one undivided whole, the
blessed homes of a free and happy people.
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