US Presidency
1865

And the House of Representatives answered Washington by the voice ofMadison: We adore the Invisible Hand which has led the American people, throughso many difficulties, to cherish a conscious responsibility for the destinyof republican liberty. More than seventy-six years have glided away since these words werespoken; the United States have passed through severer trials than wereforeseen; and now, at this new epoch in our existence as one nation, withour Union purified by sorrows and strengthened by conflict and establishedby the virtue of the people, the greatness of the occasion invites us oncemore to repeat with solemnity the pledges of our fathers to hold ourselvesanswerable before our fellow men for the success of the republican formof government. Experience has proved its sufficiency in peace and in war; it has vindicated its authority through dangers and afflictions, and suddenand terrible emergencies, which would have crushed any system that hadbeen less firmly fixed in the hearts of the people.