The eyes of all nations are upon us; their hopes of liberty are directed
towards us; the United States is now on trial by the light of its own
underlying principle. Its assertion of human right to self-government
lies a hundred years back of it. The chartered confirmation and renewal
of this assertion has come up to our very day, and though all the world
looked on and wondered to see us crush the rebellion of '61, it is at
this hour,--at this soon coming trial of Miss Anthony at Canandaigua,
before the Supreme Court of the Northern District of New York,--it is at
this trial that republican institutions will have their grand test, and
as the decision is rendered for, or against the political rights of
citizenship, so will the people of the United States find themselves
free or slaves, and so will the United States have tried itself, and
paved its way for a speedy fall, or for a long and glorious
continuance.
Miss Anthony is to-day the representative of liberty. In all ages of the
world, and during all times, there have been epochs in which some one
person took upon their own shoulders the hopes and the sorrows of the
world, and in their own person, through many struggles bore them onward.
Suddenly or gradually, as the case might be, men found the rugged path
made smooth and the way opened for the world's rapid advance.
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