OUR GREAT INHERITANCE.—John J. Crittenden, 1860.

We have the greatest country on the face of the earth. Let not our minds be so distracted by mere party strife and confusion that we shall see our government fall to pieces before our eyes, and sacrifice our country to our party instead of being ready at all times to sacrifice our party to our country. After we become the slave of party, we dare not, in the presence of any danger to the country, turn our backs to our parties, and say that we have a country that demands our services, and to it will we give them. Are we now unable to do this? Have we lost this spirit? has it gone from among us?

Providence has given this great country to us. Our wise and valiant forefathers gave us liberty and established a government for us. Let us take care of it—take care of the Constitution and the Union. That is all we require. We have before us the prospect of a glory unknown to other nations—a prospect in which our land will become the glory of the earth. Neither Rome nor any of the great empires of antiquity or of modern times can compare with what we shall be at no distant day. We are now thirty millions strong, yet we have been but eighty years in existence as a free nation. From the year 1776 down to the present time, God Almighty has blessed us above all other people and all other nations. Where shall we be thirty years hence, if such prosperity attend us? A great nation of one hundred million souls, with not enough then to develop all our resources. Every man free to think, free to speak, free to act, free to work. What must this mighty freedom produce with this mighty concurrence of hearts, of heads, of hands! What navies, what armies, what cities! Let us lift ourselves to the contemplation of what our children will be. Shall we not leave them a legacy as great as that our fathers left us? Let the contemplation of the mighty destinies involved in our Confederacy engage us until we absorb the genius of this Republic and its Constitution. Let it enter into all our motives of public action, that we may no longer be the tools and slaves of parties, of party platforms, and of party conventions.