i 
 
 
 °t^ ^juu\ ^ VXq^M 
 
 
 * 
 
Class E-2.Si>_ 
 
 Book ^H"3i_ 
 

 AN ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED AT MARSHALL C. H., VIRGINIA 
 
 ON THE 
 
 Seventy-fourth Anniversary of American Independence, 
 
 AT THE BEQUEST 0? 
 
 V 
 
 By J. O. McClellan, Esq. 
 
 ••!•«» 
 
 PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY. 
 
 w *3a 
 
 
 s-ja 
 
.M3G 
 
Grave Creek, July 12, 1850. 
 J. G. McClellan, Esq., 
 
 Dear Sir: — The undersigned, on behalf 
 of the Marshall Lyceum respectfully request for publication, a 
 copy of your truly able and interesting address, delivered on 
 the 4th inst. 
 
 Be pleased to receive from i'ue body we represent, and our- 
 selves individually our warmest wishes for your future welfare 
 and prosperity. Very respectfully 
 
 your ob't servants 
 
 VV. II. OLDHAM. ) 
 ISAAC HOGE, \ Com't. 
 G. W. BRUCE, ) 
 
 Wheeling, July 15, 1850. 
 Gent : 
 
 I am in the receipt of your note of the — inst., re- 
 questing for publication a copy of the address, which I had the 
 honor to deliver on the late National Aniversary, at the request 
 of the body which you represent. 
 
 Although, too sensible of the demerits of the address, to deem 
 it worthy of the honor you would confer, I do not feel myself at 
 liberty, under the circumstances, to withhold it. 
 
 For (he expression of personal esteem with which you are 
 pleased to conclude, I am deeply grateful, and shall cherish it 
 in lively remembrance, and cordially reciprocating it. 
 
 I am, Gent., 
 To W. H. Oldham, Esq. } with great respect 
 
 I. Hoge, Esq. V Com, Your ob't servant 
 
 Dr G. W. Bruce, ) J. G. McCLELLAN. 
 
ORATION. 
 
 The voiceful moments of another Jubilee of Indepen- 
 dence are around about us- They are here, with their 
 deathless story. They are here, with memories consecrated 
 alike to our national sympathies, and to the cause of Uni- 
 versal Freedom. Consoling and inspiriting, they abide, 
 wherever the free thoughts of the present are contending 
 with the decaying powers of the past. 
 
 Such is the beautiful feature of these, our Revolutionary 
 commemorative symbols. 
 
 The same all-seeing Sun, which hails the column on 
 Bunker Hill, and cheers the hours of this Anniversary, 
 has dawned upon Pyramids and towering shafts of olden 
 renown, commemorating, indeed the grandeur of human 
 conception, but commemorating, also, enormous wrongs 
 upon mankind — the crimes of conquerors and of tyrants. 
 
 How different the language of this Anniversary! It 
 speaks of a deed, which in its ultimate effects, more than 
 any other human transaction, stands connected with the 
 highest temporal interests of the race. For, it commemo- 
 rates the opening of a new era, in which,- the- powers and 
 capacities, the rights and dignity of man were to be vindi- 
 cated, under new auspices, and subjected to a new destiny. 
 It signalizes the first successful step from the slavish dog- 
 mas of the "divine" right of Kings and exclusive privi- 
 leges, to the broad and catholic creed of popular sovereignty 
 and equal rights. In the affirmance of these cardinal prin- 
 ciples of human freedom, and their vindication in Revolu- 
 tionary strife, the Declaration of American Independence 
 hecame a new evangel in the rights of man, and this Anni- 
 versary, a day of peculiar consecration in the calendar of 
 human events. 
 
 But it is in its National character that the day we 
 celebrate has its most imposing claim on our veneration and 
 regard. 
 
l! is in this connection, fellow-citizens, that wehavecome 
 up to this commemorative scene. We have left behind us, 
 our avocations — our strifes of sect and party. We are 
 here, with a common gratitude for a common benefaction. 
 We are amidst memories, which appeal to a common pride, 
 and awaken a common enthusiasm. For, it is the story 
 of our Independence which is here to-day, dropping from 
 the historic hours. The scene of the great Declaration — 
 the Senates and Armies of the Revolution — Washington 
 tind his compatriots — they are all here, in the inspiring re- 
 collections of this day. The distinguished Sages, whose 
 deed we commemorate, have, indeed, been long gathered 
 to their fathers. The storms of near a century have beat 
 upon the deserted Halls of the Continental Congress, and 
 the reapers of a hundred harvests have gathered their sheaves 
 where shone the bivouac-fires of the Revolution. But the 
 ascending voices of this day of Jubilee proclaim, that so 
 much moral heroism has parted with none of its lustre, ox 
 failed of none of its grateful inspiration. 
 
 Time, indeed, has but consecrated the undying story of 
 the Revolution. The pages of history, still glow, as warm- 
 ly as ever, with the thrilling record. Ingenuous youth and 
 patriotic manhood still linger, as proudly as ever, over 
 that tale of high devotion and heroic sacrifice, where gene- 
 rous enthusiasm may not linger, without an ennobling 
 throb. We still catch the sublime fervor, which in the 
 \isions of the orator, rings from the lips of John Adams, 
 as he cries, "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, 
 I am for the Declaration." We still hear, not unmoved, 
 that language of more than Roman devotion, as from the 
 ignominious scaffold, the dying Hale exclaims, 
 '1 lament that 1 have but one life to lay down for my country.*' 
 We feel that "These are deeds which should not pas 
 away, and names that must not wither, though the earth 
 forget her empires, with a just decay." 
 For it is the record of 
 
 "The high — the mountain majesty of worth," 
 Which must endure, 
 
 "And from its immortality look forth 
 
 In the Sun's face." 
 It has been ours, to have mingled with the last few and 
 feeble survivors of that generation of men. We have seen 
 
 5 
 
 ■J <v < 
 
 
them face to face. We have stood by tlieir tottering foi m? 
 and listened, "with a never languishing ■ delighy' t<» the 
 oft repeated tale' "We have had them with us in this our 
 hours of Jubilee, and seen the filmed eye light, with a tran- 
 sient fire, and ihe palsied limbs start with a momentary vigor 
 •as they seemed to hear again the thundersof Monmouth 
 and of Bennington. But we have witnessed, one afu»r 
 another, their whitened heads go down. We have follow- 
 •ed the "trailing banner and mournful music," wh.chhave 
 accompanied them, one after another, to their rest, until 
 the yielding marb.e must soon proclaim, "Here lie* t his 
 last Soldier of the Revolution." 
 
 Yet "their works do follow them." They follow them, 
 in that scene, upon which, this days sunlight is streaming- 
 all over their land, where from the masted harbors of the 
 Atlantic, to the white tent of the emigrant in Oregon, the 
 earth is rocking to the tread of a mighty civilization. 
 They follow them, in that resistless spirit of civil and reli- 
 gious enfranchisement, which, at this hour, is heaving the 
 foundations of Old Empires. We are here, to day, fellow 
 citizens, as republican freemen, rejoicing in that inherit- 
 ance of Union and Liberty; tnat unutterable benefaction of 
 private happiness, of public prosperity and renown, that 
 are linked in with the achievements, whieh this day com- 
 memorates. 
 
 We are here, not as Roman or Grecian republicans, 
 amidst priests with fillets and flowing robes, amidst altars 
 and hill-crowned temples; our liberty enveloped in the 
 splendors of a Pagan Mythology, or helmeted and fierce 
 on the path of invading empire. Nor are we here, as the 
 idealized exemplars of dreams of philosophy or the vagaries 
 of cloistered learning. But we are here as American re- 
 publicans; of this nineteenth century; illustrating in out- 
 lives and characters, in our history and social progress, the 
 practicaal and beneficent, but extraordinary results of sound 
 and rational and christianized, free institutions. 
 
 Ours is no history of patrician and plebian conflicts; of 
 Carthaginian or Mithridatian wars; of the splendid pro- 
 cessions of a Scipio, a Lucuilus. a Pompey or a Caesar, 
 returning to republican honors, laden with the spoils of Ori- 
 ental or Barbaric pomp. 
 
 Ours is the simple,story of the triumphs of Liberty and 
 Law, guided and sustained by an all-beneficent Union. It 
 
is the story of elevated, energized man, putting forth his 
 powers, under new and strong impulses of hope and ambi- 
 tion. It is the story of intellect awakened and encouraged; 
 of physical energy, going forth under a new heaven and 
 upon a new earth, and under the vigorous fostering of in- 
 stitutions, that have broken down the ancient and arbi- 
 trary barriers to the pursuit of human happiness. 
 
 Surveying here, as from a point, the rise and progress 
 of our Republicanism, and the magnificient compass of 
 usefulness and benignity to which it is allied, the leading 
 orison of this day is, of devout gratitude to Divine Provi- 
 dence, for that happy conjunction of circumstances, in which 
 its foundations were laid. 
 
 It seems to have been reserved for this our land, to fur- 
 nish, in the origin and development of its political institu- 
 tions, the only propitious elements; the only abiding basis 
 of republican energy and power. 
 
 The futile attempts that have been made in modern times 
 and under other skies, to establish republican institutions, 
 have shown, that genuine and beneficent liberty has its or- 
 igin, in other and profounder causes, than mere parchment 
 constitutions and compacts, They have shown that mere 
 paper proclamations of popular sovereignty and equal rights 
 do not and cannot change, with the change of rule, the con- 
 stitution and order of nature; do not and cannot dissipate 
 the clouds of ignorance and error, which ages of menial 
 darkness and moral obliquity have engendered, under bigo- 
 try and oppression. 
 
 Where are the Republics, which, animated by our ex- 
 ample, have arisen to emulate our prosperity and feme? 
 
 Where are the Republics whose revolutionary strife was 
 enacted, amidst those strange scenes of tropical luxuriance 
 and sublimity, that are filled with the story of a departed 
 empire of gorgeous Indian civilization? The South Amer- 
 ican and Central American and Mexican republics — where 
 and what are they? 
 
 Let a melancholy sequel of vicious and aspiring ambi- 
 tion arousing blind hates — let the story of civil dissensions 
 and strife, of dark anarchy and revolution and military 
 Dictatorship — let the scene of a clime, where squalid 
 husbandry ekes out from its fields a precarious subsistence 
 (and lawless banditti roam the mountains — give answer. 
 
 And France — revolutionary France, around whose sec- 
 
ond coming to the fraternity of the free, there linger the 
 beautiful aspirations of her. Lamartine and Hugo — what 
 is she? Where in all the land of wild and brilliant story, 
 of genius and of valor, — where, in man or his works, ar^ 
 the elements that can permanently secure to the rightful, 
 wise and enlightened guidance of the people, that favored 
 inheritance of the Bourbons? No reign of terror, indeed, 
 has again awakened the indignation of the civilized work! 
 NoDantons or Robespierres have again arisen to show how 
 nearly man may emulate, and play trie demon. But surely 
 in the fierce masses of her great capitals, with their terri- 
 ble inheritance of Atheism and crime; in the wide spread 
 social evils eating at the very heart of her society; in the 
 rank and rising harvest of civil discord, sown by dreaming 
 theorists and enthusiasts;who does not perceive that anoth- 
 er probation must elapse, before Gallic freedom can arts, 
 regenerate, and rational, and christianized? 
 
 Ours fellow citizens, was a different baptism. The con- 
 ditions of vigorous, republicanism were here, before the 
 note of revolution was sounded. They were here, in the 
 race; in the general inheritance of virtuous religious cul- 
 ture; in the general prevalence of representative institution? 
 and civil liberty; in the absence of a past full of time; hal- 
 lowed social distinctions; in the freedom from crowded 
 and licentious cities; in the independent and vigorous spirit 
 awakened and fostered by that exciting contact with the 
 scenes and struggles of a new world, which evoked all the 
 energies of self-reliant manhood. 
 
 The elements of popular institutions had indeed been en- 
 gendering from the begining; from the earliest colonial era, 
 A waste of waters rolled between the Colonists, and the 
 world of Feudalism, they had left behind. But, from i • 
 political organism, they had extracted the popular elem 
 and incorporated them in the basis of colonial organization 
 Elective representation became a prominent feature of their 
 political institutions,untrameled by the overpowering force s 
 of Feudal enactment. The Colonists hini igiit v-'^h th orn 
 their social organization, by influences tending to a 
 development oi the character afterwards impressed upon 
 our popular institutions. An unappropriated continent of 
 free-holds lay before them, from which each sturdy arm 
 could earn independent equality, with which orders and 
 degrees, founded on great landed mon->polies,could have no 
 
 
 
10 
 
 a ffiriity. No feudal castles lifted ther battlemented towers 
 a bove them, to perpetuate by their prescriptive antiquity, the 
 factitious claims of birth, or the rights of caste. No rep- 
 resentatives ot a thousand inheritors ofBaronial privleges, 
 or ancestral renown, were here entrenched, in the stately 
 halls and manorial grandeur of a bye-gone age. The gen- 
 eral distribution of landed property among a people opposes 
 one of the most formidable barriers to the encroachment 
 of power, and forms one of the most reliable promoters, as 
 well as strong defences of popular institutions. 
 
 But the founders of the Western Empire were also the 
 descendants of a proud and spirited race, jealous of their 
 liberties, and who had borne them up, with a high hand, 
 when Feudalism in a general wave, whelmed the popular 
 immunities of Europe. The Northern Colonists, in par- 
 ticular, were, in their prejudices and exiled character, fitted 
 to become the progenitors of a new order of institutions. 
 They were of that extraordinary generation, to whom re- 
 luctant England now attributes the salvation of her liberties 
 when in the fullness of their time, they struck down the 
 traitorous Charles from the throne of his fathers,and slaugh- 
 tered his battalions at Marston Moor. It was not for the 
 wealth of mines or the spoils of conquest, that Carver and 
 Bradford, and Winslow braved the terrors of the untrodden 
 wilderness. They came not like the degenerate Spaniard, 
 to coin from the blood of Incas the unhallowed wages of 
 the conquerrer. Their object was as immeasurably higher 
 than this, as their rewards have transcended the ephemeral 
 glory of the invader. Persecuted and assailed, they had 
 come for conscience sake. Under an establishment, which 
 at that time, brooked no dissent from its dogmas, and asser- 
 ted with a cruel rigor the lofty pretensions of Church and 
 State, their plea for toleration could only be made, upon 
 the fundamental principles of natural right. "Their very 
 existence' cried Edmund Burke, 'dependsupon the powerful 
 and unremitting assertion of this claim." What progenitors 
 these of men, who afterwards withstood the most potent 
 empire of the world, in battle — for a principle ! Here was 
 the most daring resistance to colonial subjection, and here, 
 the memorable opening scene of Revolution was laid. 
 
 Our colonial ancestors had brought with them all the 
 civil liberties and personal rights of the Englishman; the 
 trial by jury, the Habeas CoRPus,and the Common Law, 
 with its vigorous conservation of life and property. 
 
11 
 
 But, without the virtuous and enlightening influence of 
 religious and educational culture, popular institutions must 
 rest upon foundations, full of insecurity and danger. It 
 was the peculiar fortune of our institutions to have risen 
 amidst general public virtue and enlightenment. This was 
 the noblest inheritance of the Revolutionary age^ Who, 
 reverting to the extraordinary scenes of that day, can fail 
 to mark the effect of these latter influences upon the events 
 that then and thereafter transpired. Look upon the Sen- 
 ates. They are no assemblies of corrupted demagogues 
 nor of wild and visionary enthusiasts. Men of no ordi 
 nary intellectual and moral stature are there. Look upon 
 their features — calm, thoughtful, earnest, and reliant. Lis 
 ten to theircounsels — firm, wise and practical. Hear then- 
 great declaration, appealing to the God of battles ! Go to 
 the armies — leaders, rank and lite. They are no bruta", 
 hireling, licentious soldiery. They have left the homes 
 and toils of intelligent industry, not for the rapine of lust- 
 ful war, but to fight the righteous battles of liberty. Be- 
 hold thetrving scenes — the wintry horrors of Valley Forge, 
 anu inai uay ol siiuiime uevouon, wlien, with an indebted 
 country at their feet, they laid down their victorious arms, 
 and returned to the blackened ashes of their homes, desti- 
 tute and penniless, but still covered with glory ! 
 
 I stay not here, fellow citizens, to speak of those popu 
 lar assemblies, frequent, and convened on sudden emeigen 
 cies, by means of which, the people had long accustomed 
 themselves to the exercise of power. 
 
 It was amidst the ripened growth of such influences as 
 these, that the days of the Revolution dawned upon forums, 
 and presses and political assemblies, ringing with the free 
 thoughts of an Otis, a Hancock, an Adams, a Franklin, a 
 Jefferson, a Henry — upon three millions of spirited, but 
 calm and determined people. It was amidst [elements so 
 propitious to their genius and character, that the political 
 structures of our republicanism arose. 
 
 But it was not enough, that the foundations were pre- 
 pared — that a steady, virtuous and enlightened people were 
 ready to assume the high responsibilities of self-govern- 
 ment. Institutions were to he erected — which, looking to 
 the past and to the future, av ding the cardinal errors or 
 the fallen freedom of other times, and which, regarding 
 the inevitable weaknesses of human nature, should achieve 
 
forever, a beneficial and wise career. To the wisdom and 
 sagacity, which came forth and performed their great work 
 at that precise juncture not only in. American history, but 
 in the cause of man, I shall not presume to pay my feeble 
 tribute of admiration while I hear,, echoing through the 
 arches of the temple of this our constitutional liberty, the 
 lofty ascriptions of gifted genius,, to the memory of the 
 great builders. 
 
 Nor shall I pause to trace the legitimate consequences of 
 the constitutional freedom, then framed and adjusted, upon 
 the character and developement of succeeding times. — 
 Who, indeed, may here apply the line and plummet? 
 Who shall say, how far, and to what extent, our remarka- 
 ble governmental divisions of power, moving in beautiful 
 harmony within their respective orbits, have contributed to 
 the general weal? Who shall trace the momentous eon- 
 sequences of our noble constitutional provisions for equal 
 rights, upon the general social developement of the people? 
 Who shall say how much of character has been made no- 
 bler and better; how much of the man has been drawn out 
 ana uignmca, oy mat unseen, cue poieiii power or pucne 
 will, which, through the laws, is around us and with us, in 
 our fields and workshops and toils, and about our choicest 
 ntfections, with its strong security for private rights, and 
 personal liberties — with its amazing incentives for every 
 f xertion of the capacities of the people? Who shall de- 
 clare what has been the legitimate effect of that power, 
 which, without swords or bayonets, has stood for near a 
 century around religion, protecting the tender conscience 
 from the stripes of bigotry;:which has held sleepless watch, 
 in these our halls of justice,, sinking from her scales, the 
 privileges of birth and caste; which ever bids the honest 
 lip to speak its will, free, as the unfettered airs of heaven? 
 Who may follow and mark, upon every line of our coun- 
 try's history and progress, the effects of that call, which is 
 ever sounding from the open portals of the public forums,, 
 bidding up to usefulness and fame, every patriotic and 
 noble spirit, from every rank and condition in life? Who 
 shall declare how many good and honorable, and far-reach- 
 ing achievements, and measures of public utility and re- 
 nown, have thus been secured in all the incalculable mea- 
 sure of their influence? Who, in fine, fellow citizens, 
 may weigh, as in an. exchequer balance, the benignant re~ 
 
13 
 
 suits of that peaceful political union, which has surroun- 
 ded all the mighty interests of society, with the unity and 
 projection of a powerful nationality? 
 
 But it was not less the peculiar lot of our infant repub- 
 licanism, to have fallen to the guidance of that exalted 
 patriotism and virtue, relict of revolutionary trial, and 
 which in the providence of heaven, lingered long to mould 
 and guide its trust, ere it ascended, amidst the expanding 
 benignance it had engendered. Honor, honor, this day, 
 to the early statesmen of the republic, whose lofty policy, 
 founded in the eternal dictates of justice and right, has con- 
 tributed so powerfully to the national security and fame, 
 and which still moves as a luminous pillar, in the van of 
 our pathway. 
 
 Such, fellow citizens, was the propitious opening of this 
 our republicanism. How comprehensive the results which 
 have followed, beyond the vision of John Adams, when 
 he exclaimed, " Where will the consequences of the 
 American Eevolution end?" Behold our annals. They 
 are replete with proud recollections of men, and their 
 achievements in every path of fame. Behold our vigor- 
 ous and imposing present, open, visible, palpable to every 
 eye and sense. Behold our great interests, spreading, 
 diffusing, animating our vast confederacy, our religion and 
 letters and science, our inventive genius in the arts, — our 
 commerce competing with veteran empires in the uttermost 
 parts of the earth; our agriculture, our manufactures, our 
 great industrial energies, all, all sweeping beyond the far 
 prairies. It is but as yesteday, that the primeval forests 
 were upon these plains, and the strange melodies of barba- 
 rian incantation went up among these hills. The genius 
 of civilization has come to us from her ancient seats. In 
 the scope, and under the stimulus of our free institutions, 
 her path has been onward. Her voice is already calling to 
 us, from the far shores of the Pacific, and from its golden 
 sands the last burnished pillars of her western empire flash 
 in the descending sun ! 
 
 But our name has gone out among the nations. From 
 the days of the revolution, down to the momentous present, 
 this our republicanism has filled a large space, in the eyes 
 of mankind. From amidst the castellated, armed and op- 
 pressive Feudalism of Europe, men have looked out upon 
 our ascending path. They have witnessed no career [of 
 
14 
 
 fiery propagandism. They have seen no armies or navies 
 rushing forth, under the national sanction and in the name 
 of liberty, to desolate and ravage the earth. 
 
 But they have seen the suns of near a century going 
 down over this great Western Commonwealth of citizens 
 pursuing, without arbitrary orders and degrees without 
 standing armies, and yet without civil tumult and commo 
 tion, a peaceful, manly energetic progress to prosperity and 
 renown. And what have been the results? Blot out, fel 
 low citizens, blot out, this day, the past history of this 
 republic; sink it out of all legitimate connection with the 
 annals of mankind, and where.would have been the cause 
 of popular rights in Europe and elsewhere, now? Where 
 would have been those constitutional guarantees to popular 
 freedom, which mark its vigorous advance in the climes of 
 old Feudalism? 
 
 Standing, then, to-day, with our republicanism, auspi 
 cious in its origin and character, with the unmistakable 
 evidences of its bountiful influence, lifting themselves up 
 clearly defined to our reason and sense; with the resistless 
 conviction, also, bred of our inmost nearts, tnat yet more 
 auspicious results await, and must surround the future pro- 
 gress of this people, if we are true to ourselves and to our 
 relations to our institutions, what incentives are (urging 
 us, at this hour, to surround this our trust, with all the 
 elements of security and perpetuity, which gratitude or 
 reverence can bring from the past, or duty and responsibil 
 ity can draw from the present, and to bear it on, as an ark 
 freighted with incalculable treasure ! 
 
 When we look around upon our great inheritance, and 
 behold the conflict, which is ever waging within it be- 
 tween influences, on the one hand conservative, and on 
 the other subversive of it ; when we reflect, that Reason 
 must ever have here the highest incentive, for lofty, noble, 
 patriotic action, and passioji the broadest scope, for the 
 play of its ignoble and corrupt desires, we are reverted to 
 the tenure, the only tenure by which that inheritance may 
 De maintained, in its purity, its usefulness and its vigor. — 
 That tenure let us write, this day, upon our hearts. Let 
 us catch its sentiment in its fulness, and take it home with 
 us, teaching it, proclaiming it, voicing it forth, in the march 
 of our daily lives. That tenure, be it forever spoken, is an 
 enlightened, virtuous patriotic, public will. 
 
Viewing our institutions and their position in whatso- 
 ever light we may; viewing them, as surrounded, with aiy 
 or all other elements of stability, arising l'rom whatever 
 source, whether from their admirable adjustment of oppo- 
 sing forces, and their capability of expansion to the spirit 
 and wants of the age|; or from the deep seated conscious- 
 ness of their blessings ; the general reverence and attach- 
 ment; or finally, from the powerful and quickening agen- 
 cies and forces of these days of progress; holding even, 
 that popular institutions, to some degree, are here, an inev- 
 itable necessity for many generations; the last analysis, to 
 which we come, is, that this our republicanism is hased 
 upon tht presumed capacity of the people for self gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 But, what a momentous conclusion is this! It argues 
 an ever present sense of the rights duties and relations, 
 subsisting between citizen and citizen. It argues correct 
 conceptions always, of the nature, limitations, and objects 
 of government. It argues sound, virtuous principles ever 
 fresh, ever vigorous, ever coming up, to stay and beat back, 
 the heavy pressing forces of deception and corruption. 
 
 It has been our fortune, hitherto to have had intelligence 
 enough, and virtue enough in the land, to animate our 
 beautiful system of free government, with a healthy con- 
 servatism, which has withstood the severest shocks. 
 Amidst all the party rancor and fanaticism which have 
 raged around them, an enlightened sense of duty and res* 
 ponsibility has stood up and vindicated itself, patriotically 
 and firmly. And it is a cheering attestation of this Amer- 
 ican intelligence, and law and order abiding sentiment, 
 that, beyond the deserts and mountain ranges of the West, 
 there are^ at this hour, by the sands of the Pacific, peace- 
 ful, orderly well sustained civil governments, upheld by 
 no files of soldiery, by no lines of battleships; but resting 
 on the American basis, holding the American allegiance 
 and extending the American power and fame. 
 
 It behooves then every man, bearing the American stamp 
 and superscription, to enlist his best energies in fostering 
 upon all occasions, and at all times, an intelligent high 
 toned public sentiment ; to use the reason his God has 
 given him, and the scope his institutions afford him, to 
 cherish and build it up. It behooves him to encourage 
 the spread of religon and morals and knowledge, so that 
 
16 
 
 .the relations, duties, rights and responsibilities of the re- 
 publican citizen may be broadly appreciated and manfully 
 asserted ; that an ever abiding forbearance, magnanimity 
 and sense of justice may prevail, tempering the strifes of 
 party, disarming fanaticism of its strength and terror, hol- 
 ding up and keeping up, at all times, the great and common 
 and undisputed interests of the country. 
 
 All things proclaim the utilitarian, practical industrial 
 age. Wherever the stagnancy of mind has been broken, 
 mankind have been thronging up to the fields of industry 
 and labor, which ceaseless discovery and research are con- 
 tinuously laying open. Under these, our propitious skies, 
 rewarded industrial interests have become the predominant 
 social force. Liberty, with us, has, indeed, as anciently, 
 awakened the man. But the spirit developed, has gone to 
 its labors, in another sphere, than that of idealized beauty 
 in Architecture, Sculpture, lofty Letters, or of ceaseless 
 emulation in the Arts and Sciences, and splendid Military 
 exploits. The cultivation of the Arts and Sciences, among 
 ns, has taken a direction bearing upon this predominant 
 utilitarian, practical industrial spirit of our people. No 
 Simian Appollos, of faultless mould and imperial mien, 
 rise, in dazzling marble, from our ocean crags. No ma- 
 jestic Parthenons here attest the exquisite, the almost di- 
 vine, sense of beauty, to which genius of a free nation may 
 be attuned, under the poetic inspirations of Mythology. — 
 But the path of the Iron Horse through our mountains, and 
 over our streams;our populous waterfalls;our cities resound- 
 ing with the clatter, and veiled in the smoke of great facto- 
 ries — our boundless area of busy husbandry — our great 
 host of keen-eyed commerce, which no man may number 
 — all proclaim the predominating practical, industrial ge- 
 nius ofour nation. 
 
 But if revived industry is among us, with all the power 
 and forces of the age, it is here also, with its great ques- 
 tions — questions of the rights of labor and capital — ques- 
 tions of fundamental reform, and sounding through the 
 whole social organization. Hosts of demagogues, fanatics 
 and deceivers, in the press and out of it, stand ready to fo- 
 ment and fatten upon the prejndices and passions of this 
 ruling element in our body politic. Here, then, is a de- 
 mand for calm, patriotic, conservative sentiment, allied 
 neither to undue reverence nor radicalism, out alive always 
 
17 
 
 to genutne abuse, and cutting it down, and thus forever 
 stripping the madness, and folly* of ultraism of the only 
 guise, in which it becomes dangerous. 
 
 But we stand iu an extraordinary political attitude to the 
 world. Amidst the convulsions of the nations, we hare 
 played no part, save that of silent, all powerful example. 
 We have acted upon principle, from the beginning. We 
 are no propagandists through the torches of insurrection, 
 or the thunders of the battle-field. We have indeed, sent 
 forth our emissaries of propagandism. But, they have 
 been the white-winged fleets of commerce proclaiming 
 through all the earth, that the commercial empire of Free- 
 dom lies not entombed, with the once proud Queen of the 
 Adriatic, nor its energies with her merchant princes. Let 
 it not be said of us, "hitherto you have been weak, now 
 you are powerful and great, and will be tempted to play 
 the part/ w'.iich you dared not venture before." Let the 
 ' councils of the past prevail, with increased force. Let 
 public seat iment be wrought to a religious abhorrance of 
 every sr.d of all schemes of military propagandism and 
 conque£t. It is, indeed, noble, to mingle our tears with 
 those of weeping exiles from ruthless despotism. It is no- 
 ble, to exult as the heroic Kossuth strikes for indepen- 
 dence, a nd rises to a kindred with our Washington. It is 
 noble iu rouse, and concentrate the just scorn of civilized 
 man upon the brutal deeds, which have disgraced the vic- 
 torious Austrian. But ours is a higher mission than that 
 of the sword, whether it be upon the path of the propagan- 
 dist, or the conquerer. 
 
 Already our Southern watch-towers look out upon the 
 bland skies and effeminate races of the upper tropics. — 
 There are not wanting in the land, spirits reckless enough 
 to tarnish the unsullied stars and stripes, with the leprosy 
 of conquest. But let every man who values a republican 
 inheritance for his children, teach both them and himself, 
 to turn forever with loathing, from the serpent whispers of 
 the spirit of conquest. For be it never forgotten, while 
 the hoar Coliseum has a voice, or fallen Iberia a story, that 
 the spoils of this lust have been, as the apples of Sodom, 
 10 the nations that have eaten. 
 
 Finally, fellow citizens, our present relations to each 
 other, as Americans, amidst the angry debates, which dis- 
 turb our national councils, and the sectional distrust which 
 
threatens, and mars our peace, demand of us, to aid in dis- 
 seminating such a wisp, patriotic public sentiment as will 
 rise above the strifes of section, into the imposing sense 
 of the unspeakable value of theUnion. 
 
 Of the value of that Union, guided and animated, by an 
 intelligent sense among the people of its guarantees and 
 their obligations, who may adequately speak? Who, stan- 
 ding here, with its beneficent results flowing in his life and 
 character, and tilling all the measure of his best recollec- 
 tions, will venture to declare the depth of its soundings ? — 
 Who, looking back to the establishment of this Constitu- 
 tional Union, will declare, where otherwise would have 
 been these our liberties, these our enjoyments, these our 
 precious inheritances of security and freedom, wide as the 
 wide realm of our common country? 
 
 These our lakes and rivers have floated no armed and 
 pennoned barges of hostile States or Confederacies. From 
 their shores, have frowned no opposing cannon, nor morn- 
 ing reveille nor sentinel's cry, have betokened the watchful 
 vigilance of jealous thick-clustering nationalities. But, 
 peacefully, quietly, one after another — star after star — have 
 State after state come in, to no galling yoke, to no debas- 
 ing servitude ; but, to an honorable, harmonious, common 
 iiationality, each moving separate and free, yet united, 
 "Distinct as the billows, but one as the Sea." 
 
 We are here as Americans. We know no other histo- 
 ry. Our story is a unit. There is no gap. From 
 childhood to manhood, we have known no other language. 
 In all we possess of historic recollections, in all we feel of 
 patriotic tervor, we are Americans, and Americans only, 
 in all we are or have been, we are bound up in a common 
 nationality. We look back to all our distinguished men 
 in every path of renown — to all the illustrious deeds and 
 and honorable achievements that illustrate the pages of our 
 country's history, as belonging to us — as related to us, in 
 no other sense than as Americans. 
 
 We have looked within no local limits, when our hearts 
 of youth or of manhood thrilled as we heard a Decatnr, a 
 Bainbridge or a Perry, shouting in the victories of Erie or 
 of old Ocean. We feel no other than a broad nationality, 
 glow within us, as we follow the gallant [Scott up the 
 heights of Queenstown, or rehearse the story of the Rio 
 Grande and the march to Mexico. There is no commu- 
 
19 
 
 nion with sectional pride, as we con the roll of our civic 
 fame — its names of renown, in every walk of genius and 
 of art. 
 
 It is not'Beotia speaking to Sparta, nor Athens to Beo- 
 tia, Behold an Epaminondas ! Behold an Aristides! B t 
 in the height and depth, in the entire magnitude of the glo- 
 ry of these deeds and names, the same star-spangled banner 
 covers them all ! What voices, then, from all we feel or 
 know, from the past,the present and the future, are calling 
 upon us, this day, to take upon ourselves, anew the vows 
 of Union! Nature, indeed has made this, our inheritance, 
 "A union of lakes, a union of lands." 
 
 But be it ours — be it ours to make it, 
 
 "A union of Hearts — a union of hands." 
 
 Let us foster the charities of a common brotherhood. 
 Let the cherished sentiment of Union, mingle and glow in 
 all our teachings. Let childhood, with kindling eye, hear 
 of it from parental lips. Let hoary age whitening under 
 its benignity, forget it not, in his venerated councils. 
 
 F'cllav; citizen?: !? v l^e hanks of our beautiful Potomac 
 lies inurned the dust of him, whose farewell words, are in 
 our memories, deprecating the strifes of section, and invo- 
 king forever the spirit of Union. Washington speaks 
 i'rom his tomb ! 
 
 On the site of the Capital, which bears that illustiious 
 name, American gratitude, is now erecting an ennobling 
 testimonial of patriotic recollections. 
 
 The lofty entablature, which is to bear to comingtime, 
 the veneration of this age of Americans, for the virtues and 
 character of Washington is ascending. With a propriety 
 as beautiful, as it is honorable, the States are contributing 
 their marble offerings to grace and support the shaft com- 
 memorative of him who was the common benefactor. 
 
 Let us imitate this example. Let us put the pledges of 
 our hearts into the cause of this bountiful Union. — 
 Let us build it up upon their imperishable basis. Let us 
 cement it with our choicest affections, and crown it with 
 our highest aspirations. So shall it endure, with an ev- 
 er enlarging circle of benefaction, when decay shall have 
 fixed upon the monument, and its marble is crumbling into 
 dust. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS