Phenix gazette. [volume] (Alexandria [D.C.]) 1825-1833, 1825-07-14
GRAFTON.
Delivered by p. III. Cruise, Esq. at Baltimore.

Delivered by p. H. Cruise, Esq. at baltimore.
FELLOW CITIZENS!
THIS DAYS invested with an interest be-
yond what it claims as the anniversary OF our
own freedom. So wide and large have been
its results, that it rises beyond mere national
festival; it is an epoch in the moral history of
the-race; and has indeed, become sacred in the
memory of all the lovers of mankind
III NAV seem to attach to it an extrava-
CANT importance, look round. pray you, on
the multitude which fills this place. Are they
all native Americans, and pardonable there
fore for some excess of enthusiasm, on the
score of mems natural preposession for the
soil of their BIRTH On the contrary behold
men of many manners and tongues, gathered
from out all nations, mingling in the crowd
before me, and uniting their acclamatons on
the return of this often commemorated epoch.
This then, repeat, is not merely national
festival; 1t is, indeed, celebrated on the soil
of America; but to it throng not her native cl-
tizens alone, but those whom she receives,
welcomes and adopts from all chimes; those
whom the sincere love offreedom hath gath
cred to her shores, and those whom the extra
vagance, the oppression, the bigotry of rulers
in the old world, have compelled, as it were,
in spite of the attachment ofhome, to become
the children of liberty in this.
Here, thanks to the provident wisdom and
the admirable integrity of our fathers
thanks to the benign progress OF that Public
Opinion, before which, one day or other, ty-
rannv within her hundred ramparts shall
ssuuake and give up the ghost, here men
meet in the original equality Of men. No dis
tnctions of pedigree, fruit ofa ferocious age,
embarrass them in the competitions of life;
no bipotry compels them to receive creeds
which they cannot believe, no proscriptive
power to endure governments which they can
not approve; no jealous censorship to conceal
opinon-the free expression OF which Is
more dear to rational man than all the goods
of outward circumstance. In liberal thought,
in free deliberation, our independence and
this free constitution took their birth; and 1t IS
the open exercise Of these, more even than
the rapid expansion of our prosperity, which
renders the United States OF America the
most noble moral phenomenon OF any age
Methinks see in these confcderated common
| wealths the great asylum of the free spirits OF
the world! Methinks to these annual celebra-
tons, all the races of Christendom send their
representatives, here to raise that voice of ex-
utation which oppression renders mute at
home. Mute or stiAed it may be at this mo-
ment; but, ifthe augures of philosophy may
| be trusted, it shall not always be mute. The
prophet patriot already beholds the fateful
words inscribed in the halls where power
holds its unholy revels, and the Belshazzars
and their Babylons tremble.
IF these considerations seem insufficient to
excuse our enthusiasm, look abroad at those
who contemplate us from afar, without palti-
cipating our blessings. To them We are "a
wonder and a sign BY those of them, at
least, whom ignorance and the Jealousy OF
power have failed to render injurious and UNI
intelligent other rights, the Development
of our free polity is eagerly contemplated as
an experiment on which hang the worlds hap
piness, and the best hopes of liberty. Can
this language seem boastful, when it is remem-
bered that we are every day enforcing on the
governments of Europea practical and I'M
thankful refutation of their most egregious
errors; on kings, the strange truth, that the
people can govern themselves; on bigots, that
federation ensures peace, and even begets uni
ty; on aristocratic pride, that in common
wealth, there springs from the citizens per-
ception Of his own happiness, spirit of pub
| lie order, which binds and connects, while it.
equals all Ihes see, too, new republican
empires overspreading two continents of ten
thousand miles extent, with physical resources
as magnificent as their moral position. They
catch the whispered hopes of the millions.
who, though they yet sit beneath the shadow
of European thrones, behold the light from
these shores shining stronger and stronger
even to the perfect day They hear the as,
pirations of the noher spirits of all the world
the philosophers, the patriots, the sober
friends of truth and man; who, long impatient
of darkness and error, chde the reluctant
dawn which is to shed the day light of truth
upon mankind. To have led the van in this
battle against despotic power, is the imperish-
able trophy which we claim; is the cause and
the apology of the exultation with which we
hail this forty-ninth anniversary of our indie.
pendence.
Let ut then in this great temple offreedom,
and on this festival sacred to Political Truth,
lift up holy hearts and hands to the Supreme
Ruler of nations. Let the spirit of peace and
good will go forth among the sons of all peo-
pie, whom this day assemblies in the varied
regions of this land. Let civil and religious
intolerance expire here, as the serpent dies in
the ar OF Erin. Let Tie nalionai liPaliitSs
which the wars of ambition have engendered,
let all the errors of hoary antiquity, however
sanctifed by custom, and sacred in the eyes of
crafty power, be spurncd from our reasoning
minds. Could they be embodied and collect
ed here, accommodating as they have been du-
ring hundred ages, how gladly would de-
scend and put the torch to the colossal pile.
But in the meanwhile, amidst the disquiet and
darkness ofless happy land, here is an empire
capacious and secure, to whose sacred bounds
Liberty invokes her pilgrims from aflr. Here
the Exile of Erin, placed beyond the ingeni-
Gus expressions of the seven centuries which
have worn away since the Cd Henry, first pol,
luting his isle, rcspires the atmosphere of civil
peace and religious federation. Here the men
Of France, escaped from the strife of that field
on which wrongful power and natural righi
commended, and which, to the grief Of the
world, has gone for time against the better
champion, sit exhausted, but not dispirited,
and rally for more fortunate field. Here
the sad native of the Peninsula, breathes from
the hot pursu. ofregal bigotry. Here, in .
more propitious cline, the Briton sees vigo.
rous and expanded that plant of liberty which