Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Address Delivered by Hon. Allen G. Thurman: Before the Literary Societies, of the University of Virginia, at Charlottesville, Va;, Wednesday, June 26th, 1872
The first danger to the duration of the Republic, .of which I shall Speak, is that likely to result from its mag nitude. It is a trite observation that nations, like men, have their infancy, youth, manhood, Old age, decay, and dissolution. Whether this analogy be fanciful or not, the history of the world gives no small support to the idea, that nature has set a limit to the growth and dura tion of empire. The fate Of Babylon, Nineveh, Assyria, Media, Egypt, Of the Empires of Alexander, the Caesars, Genghis, Tamerlane, the Caliphs, Charlemagne, and Charles the Fifth, cannot, while it strikes our imagina tion, fail to arrest our attention. We pause and ask Is it ever thus to be 'p But let. Us not be too hasty in our conclusions. True, those great monarchies have been rent into pieces; true, the seats Of some-of them are now given up to desolation; but it does not follow that a similar fate awaits us. They were, for the most part, the product of conquest, and over their wide domains despotism held unlimited sway. Their fate teaches how insecure is the empire whose sole foundation is violence, and how powerless is tyranny to perpetuate Its rule over an unwilling people. But it does not teach - at least it does not prove - that a homogeneous people, under free institutions, may not attain and preserve a greatness that none of those States ever knew. To our country it reserved to make this mighty experiment, than whichnothing grander has ever engaged the sympathies or the efforts Of man. Let us not, with despondent souls, rashly predict its failure - but, rather, with hopeful hearts and patriotic zeal, let us manfully strive for its successful accomplishment. That our Republic, if it hold together, will attain an unexampled and perilous greatness is cer tainly true. Only fifty years hence our population will probablv exceed or four times the present population Of France. At. The end of a century, in 1979, if it increase in the same ratio that has hitherto marked its growth, the United States will contain more than twice as many people as now inhabit the continent of Europe. If it be inadmissible to suppose that this ratio ofincrease will continue, it is not irrational to a?irm, that within the lifetime of a child now born, our population will equal that of the five great Powers Of Europe combined. Such an aggregation of mankind, for the most part homogene ous, belonging to the most intellectual and energetic portion of the human race, speaking the same language, all more or less educated, occupying one of the fairest and most fruitful portions of the earth in that North Tem perate Zone that seems to be the chosen habitation of civilization and progress, united under one government, and that a government of free institutions, will present a phenomenon such as never yet has been seen in the world. History exhibits nothing like it. Nothing that bears any close analogy to it. It strikes the imagination like the dawn Ofa millenium, and even the most sanguine and hopeful can scarcely regard it as more than a dream. But, who is there wise enough to foresee that it will not be reality? 7110 is there bold enough to say that the Provi dence that creates will not preserve? Ivho is there author ized to condemn as blind and unreasoning optimism, the hope that the experiment may be crowned with success? It is true that a contrariety of interests is incident to so great and varied a territory. Ivith but one interruption.
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