He does not find that he belongs to what are called the 'lower classes;'
he is not shut out from any of the rights of citizenship; he is admitted
to the full enjoyment of all political privileges, as far as they are
extended to any portion of the population; and he has there advantages
which the people of this country have not yet gained, because we are but
gradually making our way out of the darkness and the errors and the
tyrannies of past ages. But in America he finds the land not cursed with
feudalism; it is free to every man to buy and sell, and possess and
transmit. He finds in the town in which he lives that the noblest
buildings are the school-houses to which his children are freely
admitted. And among those twenty millions--for I am now confining my
observations to the Free States--the son of every man has easy admission
to school, has fair opportunity for improvement; and, if God has gifted
him with power of head and of heart; there is nothing of usefulness,
nothing of greatness, nothing of success in that country to which he may
not fairly aspire.
And, Sir, this makes a difference between that country and this, on
which I must say another word.
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