And mark well, gentlemen! a nation may have a master even if it has no king—­a nation may be called a republic, and yet be not free—­Wherever centralization exists, there the nation has either sold or lent, either alienated or delegated its sovereignty; and wherever this is done, the nation has a master—­and he who has a master is of course not his own master.  Power may be centralized in many—­the centralization by and by will be concentrated in few, as in ancient Venice, or in one, as in France at the time of the “Uncle,” some forty years ago, and again in France, now that the “Nephew” has his bloody reign for a day.

Yes, gentlemen, if that generation of devoted patriots who achieved the Independence of the United States, had merely changed the old master for a new one with the name of an Emperor or a King, or of an omnipotent President, your country were now just something like Brazil or Mexico, or the Republic of South America, all of them independent, as you know, and all except Brazil even Republics, and all rich with nature’s blessings, and offering a new home to those who fly from the oppression of the Old World—­and yet all of them old before they were young, and decrepit before they were strong.  Had the founders of your country’s Independence followed this direction which led the rest of America astray, Cincinnati would be a hamlet yet as it was in Jacob Wetzel’s time; and Ohio, instead of being a first-rate star in the constellation of your Republic, would be an appendage of neighbouring Eastern States—­a not yet explored desert, marked in the map of America only by lines of northern latitude and western longitude.

The people, a real sovereign; your institutions securing real freedom, because founded on the principles of self-government; union to secure national independence and the position of a power on earth; and all together, having no master but God; omnipotence not vested in any man, in any assembly,—­and an open field to every honest exertion—­because civil, political, and religious liberty is the common benefit to all, not limited but by itself (that is, by the unseen, but not unfelt, influence of self-given law); that is the key of the living wonder which spreads before my eyes.

Let me recall to your memory a curious fact.  It is just a hundred years ago, that the first trading house upon the Great Miami was built by daring English adventurers, at a place later known as Laramie’s Store, then the territory of the Twigtwee Indians.  The trade house was destroyed by Frenchmen, who possessed then a whole world on the continent of America.  Well, twenty-four years later, France aided your America in its struggle for independence; and oh! feel not offended in your proud power of to-day, when I say that independence would not then have been achieved without the aid of France.