Joint Committee of the Legislative Assembly, after a careful and candid consideration of the subject, not only concurred in the views of the Executive government, but elucidated them in a report, the irrefutable logic and elevated statesmanship of which will for ever endear the name of Hazewell to oppressed nations; and the Senate of Massachusetts adopted the resolutions proposed by the Legislative Committee.  After such remarkable and unsolicited manifestations of conviction, there cannot be the slightest doubt that all these Executive and Legislative proceedings not only met the full approbation of the people of Massachusetts, but were the solemn interpretation of public opinion.  A spontaneous outburst of popular sentiment tells often more in a single word than all the skill of elaborate eloquence could; as when, amidst the thundering cheers of a countless multitude, a man in Worcester greeted me with the shout:  “We worship not the man, but we worship the principle.”  It was a word, like those words of flame spoken in Faneuil Hall, out of which liberty in America was born.  That word reveals the spirit, which, applying eternal truth to present exigencies, moves through the people’s heart—­that word is teeming with the destinies of America.

Give me leave to mention, that having had an opportunity to converse with leading men of the great parties, which are on the eve of an animated contest for the Presidency—­I availed myself of that opportunity, to be informed of the principal issues, in case the one or the other party carries the prize; and having got the information thereof, I could not forbear to exclaim—­“All these questions together cannot outweigh the all-overruling importance of foreign policy.”  It is there, in the question of foreign policy, that the heart of the immediate future throbs.  Security and danger, prosperity and stagnation, peace and war, tranquillity and embarrassment—­yes, life and death, will be weighed in the scale of Foreign Policy.  It is evident things are come to the point where they were in ancient Rome, when old Cato never spoke privately or publicly about whatever topic, without closing his speech with these words:  “However, my opinion is that Carthage must be destroyed”—­thus advertising his countrymen, that there was one question outweighing in importance all other questions, from which public attention should never for a moment be withdrawn.

Such, in my opinion, is the condition of the world now.  Carthage and Rome had no place on earth together.  Republican America and all-overwhelming Russian absolutism cannot much longer subsist together on earth.  Russia active—­America passive—­there is an immense danger in that fact; it is like the avalanche in the Alps, which the noise of a bird’s wing may move and thrust down with irresistible force, growing every moment.  I cannot but believe it were highly time to do as old Cato did, and finish every speech with these words—­“However, the law of nations should be maintained, and absolutism not permitted to become omnipotent.”