Countrymen, Brethren, Democrats—­Most happy am I to meet you, and to have received here renewed assurance—­of that which I have so long believed—­that the pulsation of the democratic heart is the same in every parallel of latitude, on every meridian of longitude throughout the United States.  But it required not this to confirm me in a belief so long and so happily enjoyed.—­Your own great statesman who has introduced me to this assembly has been too long associated with me, too nearly connected, we have labored too many hours, sometimes even until one day ran into another, in the cause of our country, for me to than to understand that a Massachusetts democrat has a heart comprehending the whole of our wide Union, and that its pulsations always beat for the liberty and happiness of its country.  Neither could I be unaware such was the sentiment of the democracy of New England.  For it was lay fortune lately to serve under a President drawn from the neighboring, State of New Hampshire, [applause,] and I know that he spoke the language of his heart, for I learned it in tour years of intimate connection with him, when he said he knew “no north, no south, no east, no west, but sacred maintenance of the common bond and true devotion to the common brotherhood.”  Never, sir, in the past history of our country, never, I add, in its future destiny, however bright it may be, did or will a man of higher and purer patriotism, a man more devoted to the common weal of his country, hold the helm of our great ship of State, than that same New Englander, Franklin Pierce. [Applause.]

I have heard the resolutions read and approved by this meeting; heard the address of your candidate for Governor; and these added to the address of my old and intimate friend, Gen. Cushing, bear to me fresh testimony, which I shall be happy to carry away with me, that the democracy, in the language of your own glorious Webster, “still lives,” lives not as his great spirit did, when it hung ’twixt life and death, like a star upon the horizon’s verge, but lives like the germ that is shooting upward, like the sapling that is growing to a mighty tree, the branches of which will spread over the commonwealth, and may redeem and restore Massachusetts to her once glorious place in the Union.

As I look around me and see this venerable hall thus thronged, it reminds me of another meeting, when it was found too small to contain the assembly—­that great meeting which assembled here, when the people were called upon to decide what should be done in relation to the tea-tax.  Faneuil Hall, on that occasion, was found too small, and the people went to the Old South Church, which still stands—­a monument of your early history.  And I hope the day will soon come when many Democratic meetings in Boston will be too large for Faneuil Hall! [Applause.] I am welcomed to this hall, so venerable for its associations with our early history; to this hall of which you are so justly proud, and the memories of which are part