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An oration.
Gharlestown, 18'38.
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'Y^ILU'WlMlI^IEI^SSirY'

AN

ORATION

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

CITIZENS OF GHARLESTOWN

ON THE

FIFTY-SECOND ANNIVERSARY

©etlatatton ot ttie Kntre»entrence
op
THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA.

BY EDWARD EVERETT.

GHARLESTOWN :
WHEILDON AND KAVMOND.
BOSTON :
HrLLIARD, GRAY, LITTLE AND WILKIKS,
1828.

DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT :
District Clerk's Office.
BE it remembered, that on the tenth day of July, A. D. 1828, and in the fifty
third year of the Independence of the United States of America, Wheihion 4' Ray
mond, of the said District, have deposited in this office, the title of a book, the
right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit :—
" An Oration delivered before the Citizens of Charlestown, on the fifty-second
anniversary of the Declaration of the Independence of the United States of Amer
ica. By Edward Everett."
In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, " An
Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and
books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein men
tioned," and also to an Act, entitled, " An Act supplementary to an Act, entitled,
'An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts
and books, to the authors and proprietois of such copies during the times therein
mentioned ;' and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, ei;graving
and etching historical and other prints." 3N0. W. DAVIS,
Clerk of the District of Massachusetts*

charlestown:
From the Aurora Press— Wheildon and Raymond.

Charlestown, July 7, 1S28.
At a meeting of the Committee of Arrangements for the cele
bration of the Fourth of July, it was
Voted, That Dr Abraham R. Thompson, and Mr David Dev-
ENs be a Committee to present to the Hon. Edward Everett,
the thanks of this Committee, in behalf of their fellow-citizens, for
the Oration delivered by him, on the recent anniversary of our
National Independence, and to request a copy of the same for the
Press. Attest —
WILLIAM W. WHEILDON, Secretary.

ORATION.

Fellow-Citizens :
The event, which we commemorate, is all
important, not merely in our own annals, but in
those of mankind. The sententious English poet
has declared, that "the proper study of mankind
is man ;" and of all inquiries, which have for
their object the temporal concerns of our nature,
unquestionably the history of our fellow beings
is among the most interesting. But not aU the
chapters of human history are alike important.
The annals of our race have been filled up with
incidents, which concern not, or at least ought
not to concern the great company of mankind.
History, as it has often been written, is the gene
alogy of princes, — the field-book of conquerors, —
and the fortunes of our felloAV men have been
treated, only so far as they have been affected
by the influence of the great masters and de
stroyers of the race. Such history is, I will not
say a worthless study, for it is necessary for us

6
to know the dark side, as well as the bright side
of our condition. But it is a melancholy and
heartless study, which fiUs the bosom of the
philanthropist and the friend of hberty with
.sorrow. But the History of Liberty, — the history of
men struggUng to be free, — the history of men
who have acquired, and are exercising their
freedom, — the history of those great movements
in the world, by which liberty has been estab
lished, diffused, and perpetuated, form a subject,
which we cannot contemplate too closely, — to
which we cannot chng too fondly. This is the
real history of man, — of the human family, — of
rational, immortal beings.
Tlris theme is one; — the free of all climes and
nations, are themselves a people. Their annals
are the history of freedom. Those who fell vic
tims to their principles, in the civil convulsions
of the short-lived republics of Greece, or who
sunk beneath the power of her invading foes 5
those who shed their blood for liberty amidst the
ruins of the Roman republic ; the victims of
Austrian tyranny in Switzerland, and of Span
ish tyranny in Holland ; the solitary champions
or the united bands of high-minded and patriotic
men, who have, in any region or age, struggled
and suffered in this great cause, belong to that

PEOPLE OF THE FREE, wliose fortunes and pro
gress are the most noble theme which man can
contemplate. The theme belongs to us. We inhabit a
country, which has been signalized in the great
history of freedom. We live under institutions,
more favorable to its diffusion, than any which
the world has elsewhere known. A succession
of incidents, of rare curiosity and almost mysteri
ous connexion, has marked out America as the
great theatre of political reform. Many circum
stances stand recorded in our annals, connected
with the assertion of human rights, which, were
we not familiar with them, would fill even our
own minds with amazement.
The theme belongs to the day. We celebrate
the return of the day, on which our separate
national existence was declared ; the day when
the momentous experiment was commenced, by
which the world, and posterity, and we our
selves were to be taught, how far a nation of
men can be trusted with self-government, — how
far life, and liberty, and property are safe, —
and the progress of social improvement secure,
under the influence of laws, made by those who
are to obey the laws ; the day, when, for the
first time in the world, a numerous people was
ushered into the family of nations, organized on

8
the principle of the political equality of aU the
citizens. Let us then, fellow- citizens, devote the time
which has been set apart for this portion of the
duties of the day, to a hasty review of the his
tory of Liberty, especially to a contemplation of
some of those astonishing incidents, which pre
ceded, accompanied, or have followed the settle
ment of America, and the establishment of our
institutions ; and which plainly indicate a general
tendency and co-operation of things, toward the
erection, in this country, of the great monitorial
school of human freedom.
We hear much in our early days of the liberty
of Greece and Rome; — a great and complicated
subject, which this is not the time nor the place to
attempt to disentangle. True it is, that we find,
in the annals of both these nations, bright exam
ples of public virtue; — the record of faithful
friends of their fellow men, — of strenuous foes of
oppression at home or abroad; — and admirable
precedents of popular strength. But we no
where find in them the account of a populous
country, blessed with institutions securing the
enjoyment and transmission of regulated liberty.
In freedom, as in most other things, the ancient
nations, while they made surprisingly near ap-
])roaches to the truth, yet for want of some one

9
great and essential principle or instrument, came
utterly short of it, in practice. They had pro
found and elegant scholars, but for want of the
art of printing, they could not send information out
among the people, where alone it is of great use,
in reference to human happiness. Some of them
ventured boldly to sea, and possessed an aptitude
for commerce, yet for want of the mariner's
compass, they could not navigate distant oceans,
but crept for ages along the shores of the Medi
terranean. In freedom, they established popular
institutions in single cities, but for want of the
representative principle, they could not extend
these institutions over a large and populous
country. But, as a large and populous country,
generally speaking, can alone possess strength
enough for self-defence, this want was fatal.
The fi-eest of their cities, accordingly, fell a prey,
sooner or later, to the invading army, either of
a foreign tyrant or of a domestic traitor.
In this way, liberty made no firm progress in
the ancient states. It was a speculation of the
philosopher and an experiment of the patriot; but
not a natm-al state of society. The patriots of
Greece and Rome had indeed succeeded in en
lightening the public mind, on one of the cardi
nal points of freedom, the necessity of an elected
executive. The name and the office of a kmg

10
were long esteemed not only something to be re
jected, but something rude and uncivilized, be
longing to savage nations, ignorant of the rights
of man, as understood in cultivated states. The
word iyi-mit, which originally meant no more than
monarch, was soon made, by the Greeks, synon-
imous with oppressor and despot, as it has con
tinued ever since. When the first Caesar made
his encroachments on the liberties of Rome, the
patriots even of that age, did boast that they had
 '''heard their fathers say,

" There was a Brutus once, that would have brooked
" The eternal devil, to keep his state in Rome,
" As easily as a King."
So deeply rooted was this horror of the very
name of king in the bosom of the Romans, that
under their worst tyrants, and in the darkest
days, the forms of the republic were preserved.
There was no name, under Nero and Caligula^
for the office of monarch. The individual wha
filled the office was called Caesar and Augustus,
after the first and second of the line. The word
emperor, implied no more than general. The offi
ces of consul and tribune were kept up ; although
if the choice did not fall, as it frequently did, on
the emperor, it was conferred on his favorite
officer, and sometimes on his favorite horse.. The
senate continued to meet and affected to delibe-

11
rate ; and in short, the empire began and con
tinued a pure military despotism, engrafted by a
sort of permanent usurpation, on the forms and
names of the ancient republic. The spirit in
deed of liberty had long since ceased to animate
these ancient forms ; and when the barbarous
tribes of Central Asia and Northern Europe
burst into the Roman Empire, they swept away
the poor remnant of these forms, and established
upon their ruins, the system of feudal monarchy,
from which all the modern kingdoms are de
scended. Efforts were made, in the middle ages,
by the petty republics of Italy, to regain the in
herent rights, which a long prescription had
wrested from them. But the remedy of bloody
civil wars between neighboring cities, was plain
ly more disastrous than the disease of subjection.
The struggles of freedom, in these little states,
resulted much as they had done in Greece ; ex
hibiting brilliant examples of individual character
and short intervals of public prosperity, but no
permanent progress in the organization of liberal
institutions. At length a new era seemed to begin. The
art of printing was discovered. The capture of
Constantinople, by the Turks, drove the learned
cliristians of that city into Italy, and letters re
vived. A general agitation of public sentiment,

12
in various parts of Europe, ended in the reli
gious reformation. A spirit of adventure had
awakened in the maritime nations, and projects
of remote discovery were started ; and the signs
of the times seemed to augur a great political
regeneration. But, as if to blast this hope in its
bud ; as if to counterbalance at once the opera
tion of these springs of improvement ; as if to
secure the permanence of the political slavery,
which existed in every country of that part of
the globe, at the moment when it was most
tlireatened ; the last blow at the same time was
given to the remaining power of the Great Bar
ons, — the sole check on the despotism of the
monarch which the feudal system provided; and a
new institution was firmly established in Europe,
prompt, efficient and terrible in its operation,
beyond anything which the modern world had
seen, — I mean the system of standing armies ; —
in other words, a military force, organized and
paid to support the king on his tlu"one, and re
tain the people in their subjection.
From this moment, the fate of freedom in
Europe was sealed. Something might be hoped
from the amelioration of manners, in softening
away the more barbarous parts of political des
potism. But nothing was to be expected, in the
form of liberal institutions, founded on principle.

13
The ancient and the modern forms of political
servitude were thus combined. The Roman
emperors, as I have hinted, maintained them
selves simply by military force, in nominal ac
cordance with the forms of the republic. Their
power, (to speak in modern terms), was no part
of the constitution even of their own times. The
feudal sovereigns possessed a constitutional pre
cedence in the state, which, after the diffusion
of Christianity, they claimed by the grace of
God ; but their power, in point of fact, was
circumscribed by that of their brother barons.
With the firm establishment of standing armies,
was consummated a system of avowed despot
ism, transcending all forms of the popular will,
existing by divine right, unbalanced by any ef
fectual check in the state, and upheld by milita
ry power. It needs but a glance at the state of
Europe, in the beginning of the sixteenth cen
tury, to see, that, notw^ithstanding the revival
and diffusion of letters, the progress of the refor
mation, and the improvement of manners, the
tone of the people, in the most enlightened coun
tries, was more abject than it had been since the
days of the Caesars. England was certainly not
the least free of all the countries in Europe, but
^^ ho can patiently listen to the language with
which Henrv the VIII. chides, and Elizabeth

14
scolds the lords and commons of the Parliament
of Great Britain.
All hope of liberty theil seemed lost ; in
Europe all hope was lost. A disastrous turn
had been given to the general movement of
things ; and in the disclosure of the fatal secret
of standing armies, the future political servitude
of man was apparently decided.
But a change is destined to come over the
face of things, as romantic in its origin, as it is
Avonderful in its progress. AU is not lost ; on
the contrary all is saved, at the moment, when
all seemed invoh ed in ruin. Let me just allude
to the incidents, connected with this change, as
they have lately been described, by an accom
plished countryman, now be3rond the sea.*
About half a league from the little sea-port of
Palos, in the province of Andalusia, in Spain,
stands a convent dedicated to St Mary. Some
time in the year 1486, a poor way-faring stran
ger, accompanied by a small boy, makes his ap
pearance, on foot, at the gate of this convent,
and begs of the porter a little bread and water for
his child. This friendless stranger is Columbus.
Brought up in the hardy pursuit of a mariner.
with no other relaxation from its toils, but that
* Irving's Life of Columbus.

15
of an occasional service in the fleets of his native
country, with the burden of fifty years upon his
frame, the unprotected foreigner makes his suit
to the haughty sovereigns of Portugal and Spain.
He tells them, that the broad flat earth on
which we tread, is round ; — he proposes, with
what seems a sacrilegious hand, to lift the veil
which had hung, from the creation of the world,
over the floods of the ocean ; — he promises, by a
western course, to reach the eastern shores of
Asia, — the region of gold, and diamonds, and
spices ; to extend the sovereignty of christian
kings over realms and nations hitherto unap-
proached and unknown ; — and ultimately to per
form a new crusade to the holy land, and ransom
the sepulchre of our Saviour, with the new
found gold of the east.
Who shall believe the chimerical pretension ?
The learned men examine it, and pronounce it
futile. The royal pilots have ascertained by their
own experience, that it is groundless. The
priesthood have considered it, and have pro
nounced that sentence so terrific where the in
quisition reigns, that it is a wicked heresy ; — the
common sense, and popular feeling of men, haf e
been roused first into disdainful and then into in
dignant exercise, toward a project, which, by a
strange new chimera, represented one half of

16
mankind walking with their feet toward the
other half
Such is the reception which his proposal
meets. For a long tune, the great cause of hu
manity, depending on the discovery of these fair
continents, is involved in the fortitude, persever
ance, and spirit of the solitary stranger, afready
past the time of life, when the pulse of adven
ture beats full and high. If he sink beneath the
indifference of the great, the sneers of the wise,
the enmity of the mass, and the persecution of a
host of adversaries, high and low, and give up
the fruitless and thankless pursuit of his noble
vision, what a hope for mankind is blasted ! But
he does not sink. He shakes off his paltry ene
mies, as the lion shakes the dew-drops from his
mane. That consciousness of motive and of
strength, which always supports the man who is
worthy to be supported, sustains him in his
hour of trial ; and at length, after years of ex
pectation, importunity, and hope deferred, he
launches forth upon the unknown deep, to dis
cover a new world, under the patronage of Fer
dinand and Isabella.
The patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella! —
Let us dwell for a moment on the auspices under
which our country Avas brought to light. The
patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella ! Yes,

17
doubtless, they have fitted out a convoy, worthy
the noble temper of the man, and the gallantry
of his project. Convinced at length, that it is no
daydream of a heated visionary, the fortunate
sovereigns of Castile and Arragon, returning
from their triumph over, the last of the Moors,
and putting a victorious close to a war of seven
centuries' duration, have no doubt prepared an
expedition of well appointed magnificence, to go
out upon this splendid search for other worlds.
They have made ready, no doubt, their proudest
galleon, to waft the heroic adventurer upon his
path of glory, with a whole armada of kindred
spirits, to share his toils and honors.
Alas, from his ancient resort of Palos, which
he first approached as a mendicant, — in three frail
barks, of which two were without decks, — the
great discoverer of America sails forth on the
first voyage across the unexplored waters. Such
is the patronage of kings. A few years pass by ;
he discovers a new hemisphere ; the wildest of
his visions fade into insignificance, before the re
ality of their fulfilment ; he finds a new world
for Castile and Leon, and comes back to Spain,
loaded with iron fetters. Republics, it is said,
are ungrateful ; — such are the rewards of mon-
archs. With tliis humble instrumentality, did it
.3

18
please Providence to prepare the theatre for
those events, by which a new dispensation of
liberty was to be communicated to man. But
much is yet to transpire, before even the com
mencement can be made, in the establishment of
those institutions, by which this great object in
human happiness was to be effected. The dis
covery of America had taken place under the
auspices of the government most disposed for
maritime adventure, and best enabled to extend
a helping arm, such as it was, to the enterprise
of the great discoverer. But it was not from the
same quarter, that the elements of liberty could
be derived, to be introduced, expanded, and rear
ed in the new world. Causes, upon which I need
not dweU, made it impossible, that the great
political reform should go forth from Spain.
For this object, a new train of incidents, was
preparing in another quarter.
The only real advances which modern Em*ope
had made in freedom, had. been made in Eng
land. The cause of liberty in that country was
persecuted, was subdued ; but not annilulated,
nor trampled out of being. Out of the choicest
of its suffering champions, were collected the
brave bands of emigrants, wha first went out on
the second, the more precious voyage of discov
ery, — the discovery of a land, where liberty and
its consequent blessings, might be established.

19
A late writer in the London Quarterly Re
view,* has permitted himself to say, that the
original establishment of the United States, and
that of the colony of Botany Bay, were pretty
nearly modelled on the same plan. The mean
ing of this slanderous insinuation, is, that the
United States were settled by deported convicts,
in like manner as New South Wales has been
settled by felons, whose punishment by death has
been commuted into transportation. It is doubt
less true, that, at one period, the English gov
ernment was in the habit of condemning to hard
labor as servants, in the colonies, a portion of
those, who had received the sentence of the law.
If this practice makes it proper to compare
America with Botany Bay, the same compari
son might be made of England herself, before
the practice of transportation began, and even
now ; inasmuch as a large portion of her con
victs, are held to labor, within her own bosom.
In one sense, indeed, we might doubt whether
the allegation were more of a reproach or a
compliment. During the time that the coloniza
tion of America was going on the most rapidly,
the best citizens of England, — if it be any part
of good citizenship to resist oppression, — were
*For January 1828.

20
inunured in her prisons of state, or lying at the
mercy of the law.*
Such Avere the convicts by which America
Avas settled. Men convicted of fearing God,
more than they feared man ; of sacrificing pro
perty, ease, and all the comforts of hfe, to a
sense of duty, and the dictates of conscience : —
men convicted of pure lives, braA'e hearts, and
simple manners. The enterprize vA^as led by
Raleigh, the chivalrous convict, Avho unfortu
nately believed that his royal master had the
heart of a man, and wo^ild not let a sentence of
death, AAiiich had slumbered for sixteen years,
revive and take eflfect, after so long an interval
of employment and favor. But nullum tempus
occurrit regi. The felons Avho followed next,
Avere the heroic and long suffering church of
Robinson, atLeyden, — Carver, Brewster,
Bradford, and their pious associates, convict
ed of Avorshipping God according to the dictates
of their consciences, and of giving up all, — coun
try, property, and the tombs of their fathers, —
that they might do so, unmolested. Not content
Avith having driven the puritans from her soil,
England next enacted, or put in force, the op
pressive laws, which colonized Maryland Avith
•¦ See Mt Walsh's "United Slates and Groat JJrilain," Set. ir.

21
Catholics, and Pennsylvania Avith Quakers.
Nor was it long before the American plantations
Avere recruited by the Germans, convicted of
inhabiting the Palatinate, when the merciless
armies of Louis XIV. were turned into that de
voted region ; and by the Huguenots, convicted
of holding Avhat they deemed the simple truth of
clu'istianity, when it pleased the mistress of
Louis XIV. to be very zealous for the Catholic
faith. These were followed, in the next age, by
the Highlanders, convicted of loyalty to their
hereditary prince, on the plains of CuUoden ; and
the Irish, convicted of supporting the rights of
their country, against an oppressive external
power. Such are the convicts by Avhom Amer
ica was settled.
In this Avay, whatsoever Avas really valuable
in European character, the resolute industry of
one nation, the inventive skill and curious arts
of another, the lofty enterprise of another, — the
courage, conscience, principle, self-denial of all,
were AvinnoAved out, by the pohcy of theprevaihng
governments, little knoAving Avhat they did, as a
precious seed, Avherewith to plant the soil of
America. By this singular coincidence of events,
our beloved country Avas constituted the great
asylum of suflfering virtue and oppressed human
ity. It could noAv no longer be said — as it Avas

22
of the Roman Empire, — that mankind were
shut up, as if in a vast prison-house, from whence
there was no escape. The political and ecclesi
astical oppressors of the Avorld, aUowed their per
secution to find a limit, at the shores of the At
lantic. They scarce ever attempted to pursue
their victims beyond its protecting waters. It is
plain that, in this Avay alone, the design of Prov
idence could be accomplished, which provided
for the erection of one Catholic school of free
dom, in the western hemisphere. For it must not
be a freedom of too sectional and peculiar a cast.
On the stock of the English civilization, as the
general basis, Avere to be engrafted the languages,
the arts, and the tastes of the other civilized na
tions. A tie of consanguinity must connect the
members of every family of Europe, with some
portion of our happy land ; so that in all their
trials and disasters, they may look safely beyond
the ocean, for a refuge. The victims of power,
of intolerance, of war, of disaster, in every other
part of the world, must feel, that they may find
a kindred home, within our limits. Kings,
whom the perilous convulsions of the day have
shaken from their thi-ones, must find a safe re
treat ; and the needy emigrant must at least not
fail of his bread and water, were it only for the
sake of the great discoverer, who Avas himself

23
obliged to beg them. On this corner stone the
temple of our freedom was laid from the first ;
" For here the exile met, from every clime,
" And spoke in friendship, every distant tongue ;
" Men, from the blood of warring Europe sprung,
" Were here divided by the running brook."
This peculiarity of our population, which some
have thought a misfortune, is in reality one of
the happiest features of the American character.
Without it, there Avould have been no obvious
means of introducmg a new school of civilization
into the world. Had we been the unmixed de
scendants of any one nation of Europe, we should
have retained a moral and intellectual dependence
on that nation, even after the dissolution of our
political connexion should have taken place. It
was sufiicient for the great purposes in view,
that the earliest settlements were made by men,
who had fought the battles of liberty in England,
and who brought with them the rudiments of
constitutional freedom, to a region, where no
deep-rooted prescriptions would prevent their de-
velopement. Instead of marring the symmetry
of our social system, it is one of its most attrac
tive and beautiful peculiarities, that, with the
prominent qualities of the Anglo-Saxon charac
ter, inherited from the English settlers, we have
an admixture of almost everything that is valua-

24
ble in the character of most of the other states
of Europe.
Such was the first preparation for the great
political reform, of which America was to be the
theatre. The colonies of England, — of a coun
try, where the sanctity of laAVs and the constitu
tion is professedly recognized, — the North Amer
ican colonies, Avere protected, fi-om the first,
against the introduction of the unmitigated des
potism, Avhich prevailed in the Spanish settle
ments ; — the continuance of which, doAvn to the
moment of their late reA^olt, prevented the educa
tion of those proA'inces, in the exercise of political
rights ; and, in that Avay, has thrown them into
the reA^olution, inexperienced and unprepared, —
victims, some of them, of a domestic anarchy,
scarcely less grievous than the foreign yoke they
have throAvn off. While, however, the settlers
of America brought Avith them the principles and
feelings — the poUtical habits and temper — which
defied the encroachments of arbitrary power, and
made it necessary, Avhen they were to be oppress
ed, — that they should be oppressed under the
forms of law ; it was a necessary consequence
of the state of things, — a result perhaps of the
very nature of a colonial government, — that they
should be throAvn into a position of controversy
Avith the mother country ; and thus become fa-

25
mihar with the whole energetic doctrine and dis
cipline of resistance. This formed and hardened
the temper of the colonists, and trained them up
to a spirit, meet for the conflict of separation.
On the other hand, by what I had almost call
ed the accidental circumstance, but which ought
rather to be considered as a leading incident in
the great train of events, connected with the es-
tabhshment of constitutional freedom in this coun
try, it came to pass, that nearly all the colonies —
founded as they were on the charters, grantqid
to corporate institutions, in England, which had
for their object, the pursuit of those branches of
industry and trade, pertinent to a new planta
tion, — adopted a regular representative system ;
by which, — as in ordinary civil corporations, —
the affafrs of the community are decided by the
will and voices of its members, or those author
ized by them. It was no device of the parent
governments, which gave us our colonial assem
blies. It was no refinement of philosophical
statesmen, to which Ave are indebted for our re-
pubhcan institutions of government. They grcAV
up, as it were, by accident, on the simple foun
dation I have named. "A house of burgesses,"
says Hutchinson, "broke out in Virginia, in
1620;" and "although there was no color for
it in the charter of Massachusetts, a house of
4

26
deputies appeared suddenly in 1634." "Lord
Say," observes the same historian, "tempted
the principal men of Massachusetts, to make
themselves and then hens, nobles and absolute
governors of a neAv colony, but under this plan,
they could find no people to follow them."
At this early period, and in this simple, un
pretending manner, aa as introduced to the world,
that greatest discovery in political science, or
political practice, a representative republican
system. "The discovery of the system of the
representative republic," says M. de Chateau
briand, "is one of the greatest political events
that ever occurred." But it is not one of the
greatest, it is the very greatest ; — and combined
Avith another principle, to which I shall present
ly advert, and which is also the invention of the
United States, it marks an era in human things;
— a discovery in the great science of social hap
piness compared with which, everything, that
terminates in the temporal interests of man,
sinks into insignificance.
Thus then Avas the foundation laid, thus was
the preparation commenced, of the grand politi
cal regeneration. For about a century and a
half, this preparation was carried on. Without
any of the temptations, Avhich drew the Spanish
adventurers to Mexico and Peru, the colonies

27
throve almost beyond example, and in the face
of neglect, contempt, and persecution. Their
numbers, in the substantial middle classes of
hfe, increased with singular rapidity. There
were no prerogatives to invite an aristocracy, no
vast establishments to attract the indigent. —
There was nothing but the rewards of labor and
the hope of freedom.
But at length this hope, never adequately satis
fied, began to turn into doubt and despair. The
colonies had become too important to be over
looked ; — their government was a prerogative
too important to be left in their own hands ; —
and the legislation of the mother country decitl-
edly assumed a form, which announced to the
patriots, that the hour at length had come, Avhen
the chains of the great discoverer were to be
avenged ; the sufferings of the first settlers to be
compensated ; and the long deferred hopes of
humanity were to be fulfilled.
You need not, friends and fellow- citizens, that
I should dwell upon the incidents of the last
great act in the colonial drama. This very place
was the scene of some of the earliest, and the
most memorable of them ; — then recollection is
a part of the inheritance of honor, which you
have received from your fathers. In the early
councils, and first struggles of the great revolu-

28
tionary enterprize, the citizens of this place
Avere among the most prominent. The mea
sures of resistance which were projected by the
patriots of Charlestown, were opposed but by
one individual. An active co-operation existed
between the political leaders in Boston and this
place. The beacon light, which Avas kindled in
the toAvers of Christ Church, in Boston, on
the night of the eighteenth, was answered from
the steeple of the church, in Avhich we are now
assembled. The intrepid messenger, who was
sent forward to convey to Hancock and Ad
ams the intelligence of the approach of the Bri
tish troops, Avas furnished Avith a horse, for his
eventful errand, by a respected citizen of this
place. At the close of the following momentous
day, the British forces, — the remnant of its dis
astrous events, — found refuge, under the shades
of night, upon the heights of Charlestown ; — and
there, on the ever memorable seventeenth of
June, that great and costly sacrifice, in the cause
of freedom, was aAvfuUy consummated with fire
and blood. Your hill-tops were strewed with
the illustrious dead ; your peaceful homes were
wrapped in devouring flames ; the fair fruits of a
century and a half of civUized culture, were re
duced to a heap of bloody ashes ; — and two
thousand men, Avomen, and children, turned

29
houseless upon the world. With the exception
of the ravages of the nineteenth of April, the
chalice of woe and desolation, was in this man
ner, first presented to the lips of the citizens of
Charlestown ; and they were called upon, at
that early period, to taste of its extreme bitter
ness. Thus devoted, as it were, to the cause,
it is no wonder that the spirit of the revolution
should have taken possession of their bosoms,
and been transmitted to their children. The
American, who, in any part of the union, could
forget the scenes and the principles of the revo-
tion, would thereby prove himself unworthy of
the blessings, which he enjoys ; but the citizen
of Charlestown, who could be cold on this mo
mentous theme, must hear a voice of reproach
from the walls, which were reared on the ashes
of the seventeenth of June ; a cry from the very
sods of the sacred hiU, where our fathers shed
their blood.
The revolution was at length accomplished.
The political separation of the country from
Great Britain, was effected ; and it now re
mained to organize the liberty, which had been
reaped on bloody fields ; — to establish, in the
place of the government, whose yoke had been
thrown off", a government at home, which should
fulfil the great design of the revolution, and sat-

30
isfy the demands of the friends of liberty at
large. What manifold perils aAvaited the step !
The danger was incalculable, that too little or
too much Avould be done. Smarting under the
oppressions of a government, of which the resi
dence was remote, and the spirit alien to their
feelings, there Avas great danger, that the colo
nies, in the act of declaring themselves sovereign
and independent states, Avould push to an ex
treme the prerogative of their separate inde
pendence, and refuse to admit any authority,
beyond the limits of the particular common
wealths which they severally constituted. On
the other hand, achieving their independence
beneath the banners of the continental army, as
cribing, and justly, no small portion of their
success, to the personal qualities of the beloved
Father of his Country, there was danger not
less eminent, that those, who perceived the evils
of the opposite extreme, would be inclined to
confer too much strength on one general govern
ment ; and would, perhaps, even fancy the ne
cessity of investing the hero of the revolution, in
form, with that sovereign power, which his per
sonal ascendancy gave him in the hearts of his
country. Such and so critical was the alterna
tive, which the organization of the new govern
ment presented, and on the successful issue of

31
which, the entire benefit of this great movement
in human affairs, was to depend.
The first eflfort to solve the great problem,
was made in the progress of the revolution, and
was without success. The articles of confede
ration verged to the extreme of an union too
Aveak for its great purposes ; and the moment
the pressure of the war was withdrawn, the in
adequacy of this first project of a government
was felt. The United States found themselves
overwhelmed with debt, without the means of
paying it. Rich in the materials of an extensive
commerce, they found their ports crowded with
foreign ships, and themselves without the power
to raise a revenue. Abounding in aU the ele
ments of national wealth, they wanted resources,
to defray the ordinary expenses of government.
For a moment, and to the hasty observer,
this last effort for the establishment of freedom,
had failed. No fruit had sprung from this lavish
expenditure of treasure and blood. We had
changed the powerful protection of the mother
country, into a cold and jealous amity, if not into
a slumbering hostility. The oppressive princi
ples, against Avhich our fathers had struggled,
Avere succeeded by more oppressive realities.
The burden of the British navigation-act was
removed, but it was followed by the impossibil-

32
ity of protecting our shipping, by a navigation-
laAv of our own. A state of general prosperity,
existing before the revolution, was succeeded by
universal exhaustion ; — and a high and indignant
tone of militant patriotism, into universal des
pondency. It remained then to give its last great effect to
all that had been done, since the discovery of
America, to establish the cause of liberty in the
western hemisphere, and by another more dehb-
erate effort, to organize a government, by which,
not only tlie present evils, under which the
country Avas suffering, should be remedied, but
the final design of Providence should be fulfilled.
Such was the task, which devolved on the coun
cil of sages, AAiio assembled at Philadelphia, on
the second Monday of May, 1787, of which,
General Washington was elected President, and
over Avhose debates your townsman, Mr Gor-
ham, presided, as chairman of the committee of
the Avhole, during the discussion of the plan of
the federal constitution.
The very first step to be taken, was one of
pain and regret. The old confederation was to
be given up. What misgivings and grief must
not this preliminary sacrifice have occasioned to
the patriotic members of the convention ! They
were attached, and with reason, to its simple ma-

33
jesty. It was weak then, but it had been strong
enough to carry the colonies through the storms
of the rcA'^olution. Some of the great men, who
led up the forlorn hope of their country, in the
hour of her dearest peril, had died in its defence.
Its banner over us had been not love alone, but
triumph and joy. Could not a little inefficiency
be pardoned to a Union, with which France had
made an alhance, and England had made peace?
Could the proposed new government do more or
better things than this had done? And above all,
when the flag of the old thirteen was struck,
which had never been struck in battle, who
could give assurance, that the hearts of the peo
ple could be rallied to another banner ?
Such were the misgivings of some of the great
' men of that day, — the Henrys, the Gerrys, arid
other eminent anti-federalists, to whose scruples,
it is time that justice should be done. They
¦Were the sagacious misgivings of wise men, the
just forebodings of brave men ; who were deter
mined not to defraud posterity of the blessings,
for which they had all suffered, and for Avhich
some of them had fought.
The members of that convention, in going
about the great Avork before them, deliberately
laid aside the means, by which all preceding le
gislators, had aimed to accomplish a like AVork.
5

34
In founding a strong and efficient government, ad
equate to the raising up of a powerful and pros
perous people, then first step was, to reject the
institutions to which other governments traced
their strength and 'prosperity. The world had
settled doAvn into the sad belief, that a heredi
tary monarch was necessary to give strength to
the executive. The fi-amers of our constitution
provided for an elective chief magistrate, chosen
every four years. Every other country had been
betrayed into the admission of a distinction of
ranks in society, under the absurd impression, that
privileged orders are necessary to the permanence
of the social system. The framers of our consti
tution, established everything, on the pure natu
ral basis of an uniform equality of the elective
franchise, to be exercised by aU the citizens, at
fixed and short intervals. In other countries, it
had been thought necessary to constitute some one
political centre, toAvard which all pohtical power
should tend, and at which, in the last resort, it
should be exercised. The framers of the consti
tution devised a scheme of confederate and re
presentative sovereign republics, united on a
happy distribution of powers, which, reserving
to the separate states all the political functions,
essential to the public peace and private justice,
— bestowed upon the general government, those

35
and those only, required for the service of the
whole. Thus was completed the great revolutionary
movement ; thus was perfected that mature or
ganization of a fi-ee system^ destined to stand
forever as the examplar of popular government.
Thus was discharged the duty of our fathers to
themselves, to the country, to the Avorld.
The example thus set up, in the eyes of the
nations, Avas instantly and Avidely felt. It Avas
immediately made visible to sagacious observers,
that a constitutional age had begun. It Avas in
the nature of things, that, Avhere the former evil
existed in its most inveterate form, the reaction
should also be the most violent. Hence the dread
ful excesses, that marked the progress of the
French revolution, and for a while, almost made
the name of liberty odious. But it is not less in
the nature of things, that, Avhen the most indispu
table and enviable political blessings stand illus
trated before the world, — not merely in specu
lation and in theory, but in living practice and
bright example, — the nations of the earth, in pro
portion as they have eyes to see, and ears to hear,
and hands to grasp, should insist on imitating the
example. Imitate it they have, and imitate they
Avill. France clung to the hope of constitu
tional hberty through thirty years of appaUing

36
tribulation, and now enjoys the ffeest Constitu
tion in Europe. Spain, Portugal, the two Ital
ian Kingdoms, and several of the German States
have entered on the same path. Their progress
has been and must be A^arious ; modified by cir
cumstances ; by the interests and passions of
Governments and men, and in some cases seem
ingly arrested. But their march is as sure as fate.
If Ave believe at all in the political revival of
Europe, there can be no really retrograde move
ment in this cause, and that which seems so, in
the revolutions of government, is hke those of
the heavenly bodies, a part of their eternal orbit.
There can be no retreat, for the great exam
plar must stand, to convince the hesitating na
tions, under every reverse, that the reform they
strive at, is practicable, is real, is within their
reach. Institutions may fluctuate ; they may
be pushed onward, as they Avere in France, to a
premature simplicity, and fall back to a simili
tude of the ancient forms. But there is an ele
ment of popular strength abroad in the world,
stronger than forms and institutions, and daily
growing in power. A public opinion of a new
kind has arisen among men, — the opinion of the
civilized world. Springing into existence on the
shores of our OAvn continent, it has grown with
our growth and strengthened Avith our strength ;

37
till now, this^oral giant, like that of the an
cient poet, marches along the earth and across
the ocean, but his front is among the stars. The
course of the day does not weary, nor the dark
ness of night arrest him. He grasps the pillars
of the temple Avhere oppression sits enthroned,
not groping and benighted, like the strong man of
old, to be crushed himself beneath the fall ; but
trampling, in his strength, on its massy ruins.
Under the inffuence, I might almost say the
unaided inffuence, of public opinion, formed and
nourished by our example, tliree wonderful rev
olutions have broken out in a generation. That
of France, not yet consummated, has left that
country, (which it found in a condition scarcely
better than Turkey), in the possession of the
blessings of a representative constitutional gov
ernment. Another revolution has emancipated
the American possessions of Spain, by an almost
unassisted action of moral causes. Nothing but
the strong sense of the age, that a government
like that of Ferdinand ought not to subsist, over
regions like those which stretch to the South of
us, on the continent, could have sufficed to bring
abotit their emancipation, against all the obstacles,
AA^hich the state of society among them, opposes
at present, to regulated hberty and safe independ
ence. When Mr Canning said of the emancipa-

38
tion of these States, that "He had called into
existence a new Avorld in the West," he spoke
as Avisely as the artist, Avho, having tipped the
forks of a conductor with silver, should boast
that he had created the lightning, AA'hich it
calls doAA'ii from the clouds. But the greatest
triumph of public opinion is the revolution of
Greece. The spontaneous sense of the friends
of liberty at home and abroad, — without armies,
Avithout navies, Avithout concert, and acting only
through the simple channels of ordinary commu
nication, principally the press, has rallied the
governments of Europe to this ancient and favor
ed soil of freedom. Pledged to remain at peace,
they have been driven, by the force of public sen
timent, into the war. Leagued against the cause
revolution, as such, they have been compelled to
send their armies and navies, to fight the battles
of revolt. Dignifying the barbarous oppressor of
cliristian Greece, with the title of " ancient and
faithful ally," they have been constrained, by
the outraged feeling of the civilized world, to
burn up, in time of peace, the navy of their ally,
Avith all his antiquity and all his fidelity ; and to
cast the broad shield of the Holy Alliance over
a young and turbulent republic.
This bright prospect may be clouded in ; the
poAA'^ers of Europe, which have reluctantly taken.

39
may speedily abandon the field. Some inglorious
composition may yet save the Ottoman empire
from dissolution, at the sacrifice of the hberty of
Greece, and the power of Europe. But such
are not the indications of things. The prospect
is fair, that the pohtical regeneration, Avhich
commenced in the West, is now going baclcAvard
to resuscitate the once happy and long deserted
regions of the older Avorld. The hope is not
noAV chimerical, that those lovely islands, the
ffower of the Levant, — the shores of that re-
noAvned sea, around which aU the associations
of antiquity are concentrated, are again to be
brought back to the sway of civilization and cliris-
tianity. Happily the interest of the great powers
of Europe seem to beckon them onward in the
path of humanity. The half deserted coasts of
Syria and Egypt, the fertile but almost desolated
Archipelago, the empty shores of Africa, the
granary of ancient Rome, seem to offer them
selves as a ready refuge for the crowded, starv
ing, discontented millions of Western Europe.
No natural nor political obstacle opposes itself
to their occupation. France has long cast a
wistful eye on Egypt. Napoleon derived the
idea of his expedition, which was set doAvn to the
unchastened ambition of a revolutionary soldier,
from a memoir found in the cabinet of Louis

40
XVI. England has already laid her hand, an
arbitrary but a civilized and christian hand, on
Malta and the Ionian Isles, and Cyprus, Rhodes
and Candia must soon follow, — Avhile it is not be
yond the reach of hope, that a representative re
public may be estabhshed in Central Greece and
the adjacent islands. In this way, and with the
example of what has here been done, to extend
the reign of civilization and freedom, it is not
too much to anticipate, that many generations
wiU not pass, before the same benignant inffu
ence will revisit the awakened east, and thus
fulfil, in the happiest sense, the vision of Col
umbus, by restoring a civilized population to
the primitive seats of our holy faith.
Fellow- Citizens, the eventful pages in the
volume of human fortune, are opening upon us,
with sublime rapidity of succession. It is two
hundred years this summer, since a few of that
party, who in 1628, commenced, in Salem, the
first settlement of Massachusetts, were sent by
Governor Endicott, to explore the spot, where
we stand. They found that one pioneer, of the
name of Wal ford, had gone before them, in
the march of civilization, and had planted himself
among the numerous and Avarlike savages in this
quarter. From them, the native lords of the
soil, these first hardy adventurers derived their

41
title to the lands, on which they settled ; and by
the arts of civilization and peace, opened the
Avay for the main body of the colonists of Mas
sachusetts, under Governor Winthrop, who
two years afterwards, by a coincidence which
you will think worth naming, arrived in Mystic
River, and pitched his patriarchal tent, on Ten
Hills, upon the seventeenth day of June, 1630.
Massachusetts, at that moment, consisted of six
huts at Salem, and one at this place. It seems
but a span of time, as the mind ranges over it.
A venerable individual is living, at the seat of
the first settlement, whose life covers one half
of the entire period : but what a destiny has
been unfolded before our country ! — Avhat events
have crowded your annals ! — what scenes of
thrUling interest and eternal glory have signal
ized the very spot where we stand !
In that unceasing march of things, Avhich calls
forward the successive generations of men to
perform then* part on the stage of life, Ave at
length are summoned to appear. Our fathers
have passed their hour of visitation ;— hoAV Avor-
thily, let the growth and prosperity of our happy
land, and the security of our firesides, attest. Or
if this appeal be too weak to move us, let the el
oquent silence of yonder venerated heights, — let
the column, Avhich is there rising in simple ma-
6

42
jesty, recall their venerated forms, as they toiled,
in the hasty trenches, through the dreary watch
es of that night of expectation, heaving up the
sods, Avhere they lay in peace and in honor, ere
the folloAving sun had set. The turn has come to
us. The trial of adversity Avas theirs : the trial
of prosperity is ours. Let us meet it as men
Avho knoAV their duty, and prize their blessings.
Our position is the most enviable, the most re
sponsible, Avhich men can fill. If this generation
does its duty, the cause of constitutional freedom
is safe. If we fail : if we fail ; — not only do aa^c
defraud our children of the inheritance which we
received from our fathers, but we blast the hopes
of the friends of liberty throughout our continent,
throughout Europe, throughout the world, to
the end of time.
History is not without her examples of hard
fought fields, where the banner of liberty has
ffoated triumphantly on the Avildest storm of
battle. She is without her examples of a peo
ple, by AA'hom the dear-bought treasure has been
wisely employed and safely handed down. The
eyes of the world are turned for that example to
us. It is related by an ancient historian,* of
that Brutus who slew Caesar, that he threw
himself on his sAvord, after the disastrous battle
*reo CassiuB, lib. XLVII. in fin.

43
of Phillippi, with the bitter exclamation, that he
had followed virtue as a substance, but found it
a name. It is not too much to say, that there
are, at this moment, noble spirits in the elder
world, who are anxiously watching the march of
our institutions, to learn whether liberty, as
they have been told, is a mockery, a pretence,
and a curse, or a blessing, for which it becomes
them to brave the rack, the scaffold, and the
scimitar. Let us then, as we assemble, on the birthday
of the nation, as we gather upon the green turf,
once wet with precious blood, let us devote our
selves to the sacred cause of constitutional liber
ty. Let us abjure the interests and passions,
which divide the great family of American free
men. Let the rage of party spirit sleep today.
Let us resolve, that our children shall have
cause to bless the memory of their fathers, as
we have cause to bless the memory of ours.

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