Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1845-07-18
1zR. BANCROFT,s GRAFTON,

MR. BANCROFT'S ORATION, |
Delivered at Washington City, OF, the s6M June,
lo45, on the life and character Of GENERAL
ANDREW JACKSON.
The men of the American revolution are no !
more. That age Of creative power has passed
away. The last Surviving sgner Of the Dec !
iaratlon of independence has long since left
the earth. Washington lies near his own Po-
tomac, surrounded by his family and his SER
wants. Adams, the colossus of independence,
reposes In the modest graveyard of his native !
region. Jefferson sleeps on the heights of
his own Monticello, whence his eye overlook
ed his beloved Virginia. Madison, the last
fsurvivor of the men who made our consttu-
ton. lives only in our hearts. But who shall
say that the heroes, in whom the image of
God shone most brightly, do not live forever?
They were filled with the vast conceptions
which called America in being; they lived
tor those conceptions; and their deeds praise
them.
We are met to commemorate the virtues of
one who shed his blood for our independence,
took part In winning the territory and forming
the early institutions of the West, and was
ltnbued with all the great ideas which consti-
tute the moral force of our country. On the
spot where he gave his solemn fealty to the
peope-here, where he pledged himself be-
fore the world to freedom, to the constitution,
and to the laws-we meet TO pay our tribute
to the memory of the last great name, which
gathers round itself all the associations that
form the glory o. America.
South Carolina gave birthplace to An
drew Jackson. On its remote frontier far up
on the forest-clad banks of the Catawba, in
region where the settlers we've just beginning
to cluster, his eye first saw the light. There
his infancy sported in the ancient forests, and
his mind was nursed to freedom by their in
fiuence. He was the youngest son of an Irish
emigrant, of Scottish origin, who, two years
after the great war of Frederic of Prussia, fled
to America for relief, from indulgence and OPP
preston. His birth was in 1867, at a time
when the people of our land were but body
of dependent colonists, scarcely more than two
millions in number, scattered along an inn
mense coast with no army, or navy, or union;
and exposed to the attempts of England to
control America, by the aid of military force.
His boyhood grew up in the midst Of the con-
test with Great Britain. The first great polit-
ical truth that reached his heart, was that all
men are free and equal; the first great fact that
beamed on his understanding, was his coun-
try's independence.
The strife, as it increased, came near the
shades of his own upland residence. AS a
boy of thirteen, he witnessed the scenes OF
horror that accompany civil war; and when
but year older, with an elder brother, he
shouldered his musket, and went forth to strike
a blow for his country.
Joyous era for America and for humanity
But for him, the orphan boy, the events were
full of agony and grief. His father was no
more. His oldest brother fell victim to the
war of the revolution; another (his compan-
ion in rnoc\ diod Of ,uoupdc rocoivpd in, hei
Joint captivity his mother went down to the
grave a victim to grief and efforts to rescue
her sons; and when peace came, he was alone
in the world, with no kindred to cherish him
and little inheritance but his own untried
powers.
The nation which emancipated itself from
British rules organizes itself; the cOntedera-
ton gives way to the constitution: the per
fecting of that constitntion-that grand event
Of the thousand years Of modern history--ls
accomplished America exists as people,
gains unity as government and takes its
place as nation, among the powers OF the
earth.
The next great office to be performed by
America, is the taking possession of the vii.
; derness. The magnificent western valley cried
out to the civilization of popular power, thai
it must be occupied by cultivated men.
D6nOlu, tu6u. Jul pudu utiO, otclhlF C"i'
nest, consecrated to humanity from childhood
by sorrow, having neither father, nor mother
nor sister, nor surviving brother, SO young
and yet SO solitary, and therefore bound the
more closely to collective man-behoId hin
elect for bis lot to 60 forth and assist In lay
inc the foundations of society in the great val
ley Of the Mississippi.
At the very time when Washington was
pledging his own and future generations to the
support of the popular institutions which were
to be the LIGHT Of the human rdce-at the time
when the institutions of the Old World were
rocking to their centre, and the mighty fabric
that had come down from the middle ages
was falling in--the adventurous Jackson, II
the radiant glory, and bounGless hope and con
fdent intrepidity of twenty-one, plunged int
the wilderness, crossed the great mountain
barrier that divides the western waters from
the Atlantic, followed the paths Of the earl J
hunters and fugitlves, and, not content witt
the nearer neighborhood to his parent State
went still further and further to the west, til
he found his home in the most beautiful regio
on the Cumberland. There, from the first, h
was recognised as the great pioneer: nnde
his courage, the coming emIgrahts were sur
to find a shield.
s. The lovers of adventure began to pour them
o. selves into the territory, whose delicious eli
of mate and fertile soil invited the presence Q
id social man. The hunter, with lis rifle an
nq axe, attended by his wife and children tn
ii, Iherdsman driving the few cattle that were
-. multiply as they broWsed the cultlvator {
m the soil-all came to the inviting REGION
w. Wherever the bending mountains opened
IF pass-Wherever the buffaloes and the beast
lid of the forest had made trace, these sons {
les nature, children of humanity, in the higheS
of sentiment of personal freedom, came to occup
ate the beautiful wilderness whose pralries bios
Of somed every where profusey with wild flow