Nor is the experience of our Republic peculiar. Where is the country or power which does not inscribe the names of foreigners on its historic scroll? It was Christopher Columbus, of Genoa, who disclosed to Spain the New World; it was Magellan, of Portugal, sailing in the service of Spain, who first passed with adventurous keel through those distant Southern straits which now bear his name, and opened the way to the vast Pacific Sea; and it was Cabot, the Venetian, who first conducted English enterprise to this North American continent. As in triumphs of discovery, so also in other fields have foreigners excelled, while serving states to which they were bound by no tie of birth. The Dutch Grotius, author of the great work, “Laws of War and Peace,” an exile from his own country, became Ambassador of Sweden; and, in our own day, the Italian Pozzo di Borgo, turning his back upon his own country, reached the most exalted diplomatic trust in the jealous service of Russia. In the list of monarchs on the throne of England, not one has been more truly English than the Dutch William. In Holland no ruler has equalled in renown the German William, Prince of Orange. In Russia the German Catharine the Second takes place among the most commanding sovereigns. And who of Swedish monarchs was a better Swede than Bernadotte, the Frenchman? and what Frenchman was ever filled with aspiration for France more than the Italian Napoleon Bonaparte?
I pass from these things, which have occupied me too long. A party, which, beginning in secrecy, interferes with religious belief, and founds a discrimination on the accident of birth, is not the party for us.
“Where Liberty is, there is my country,” was the sentiment of that great Apostle of Freedom, Benjamin Franklin, uttered during the trials of the Revolution. In similar strain, I would say, “Where Liberty is, there is my party.” Such an organization is now happily constituted here in Massachusetts, and in all the Free States, under the name of REPUBLICAN PARTY.
In assuming our place as a distinct party, we simply give form and direction, in harmony with the usage and genius of popular governments, to a movement which stirs the whole country, and does not find adequate and constant organ in either of the other existing parties. The early opposition to Slavery was simply a sentiment, outgushing from the hearts of the sensitive and humane. In the lapse of time it became a determined principle, inspiring larger numbers, and showing itself first in an organized endeavor to resist the annexation of slaveholding Texas; next, to prohibit Slavery in newly acquired territories; and now, alarmed by the overthrow of all rights in Kansas, and the domination of the Slave Oligarchy throughout the Republic, it breaks forth in a stronger effort, a wider union, and a deeper channel, inspiring yet larger numbers and firmer resolves, while opposite quarters contribute to its power,--even as the fountain, first outgushing from the weeping sides of its pure mountain home, trickles in the rill, leaps in the torrent, and flows in the river, till, at last, swollen with accumulated waters, it presses onward, in irresistible, beneficent current, fertilizing and uniting the spaces which it traverses, washing the feet of cities, and wooing states to repose upon its banks.