I have often answered that objection, which in itself is a distrust in God, in justice, in right, and in the blessings of humanity.  Allow me to-day in addition, only one remark.  Two days ago the rumour was spread that Louis Napoleon was killed.  It was remarkable to see how those who countenance despotism, grew livid by despair, and how those who doubt about our success rose in spirits and in confidence.  Some time ago a similar false rumour caused almost a commercial crisis in the cotton market of New Orleans.  Now how can the security of that cause be trusted, where the mere possible death of a single individual, and of such an individual, can so crush every calculation upon the solidity of the peace of oppression?

Allow me to draw your attention to a circumstance which one of your countrymen, William Henry Trescott, of South Carolina, has recommended to public attention, already in the year 1849, in his pamphlet, entitled ‘A few Thoughts on the Foreign Policy of the United States.’  The position of the United States underwent an immense change, as soon as your boundaries extended to the Pacific; extensive commercial relations with Asia became a necessity.  You feel it—­the very movements now commenced in respect to Japan bear witness to it.  Let those movements be completed, and whom will you meet?  Russia.  That is the old story.  Everybody who is willing to have some influence in the East must meet Russia, whose sterling thought is to exclude all other powers from the East.

England is to you the competitor in the commerce of the East; and competitors may well have a fair field for them both; but Russia is not a competitor there, she is an enemy.  Look to the Mediterranean Sea, and remember the everlasting thought of Russia to crush Turkey, and to get hold of Constantinople.  What is the key of this eternal fond desire, inherited from Peter the Great?  It is not the mere desire of territorial aggrandizement; the real key is, that it is only by the possession of Constantinople that Russia, a great territorial power already, can become also a great maritime power.  The Mediterranean is what Russia wants, to be the mistress of Europe, Asia, of Africa, and of the world.  But the Sultan, sitting on the Bosphorus, confines the navy of the Czar to the Black Sea, an interior lake, without any outlet but by the beautiful Bosphorus.  Constantinople taken, it is Russia which controls the Mediterranean:—­a circumstance of such immense importance, that Mr. Trescott says, it would be a sufficient reason for direct and positive interference—­that is, for war.

There—­there—­in Turkey, will be decided the fate of the world.  Perhaps there will be not only the end, but also the beginning of the end; and some American politicians say, the United States can do nothing for Europe’s liberty, but Turkey can,—­holding only the Bosphorus against an inroad from Sebastopol!—­Turkey, with its brave four hundred thousand men—­the