This task gratitude
to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our
species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.
How then shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach
of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect
some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a
blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with
all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest,
with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from
the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand
years.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer:
If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from
abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and
finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die
by suicide.
I hope I am over-wary; but if I am not, there is even now something of
ill omen amongst us.
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