Daily Richmond times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1849-1850, 1850-06-26
OR. TION

GRAFTON
Delivered in the Ship House in the Nauy Yard
at CharleStoa0n, on the Seventeenth of June,
1850, being the 18th Anniversary Of the Battle
Of Bunker Hill. BY EDWARD EVERETT.
When ] contemplate the objects around me,
when reflect upon the spot the scene and the
circumstances of the occasion; when | consider
how much of what we witness and experience of
the prosperity of our common country, is, in the
great connection of cause and effect due to the
men and the deed which we commemorate this
day, | cannot but call to mind the epitaph of the
architect of st. Pauls at London: IF you seek for
a monument look around you. We have indeed
erected monument on the hill before us des-
tined, as we trust, to last as long any fabric of
human hands shall endure. No ordinary violence
on the part of man will shake the solid column
The storms of a thousand winters will beat upon
itin vain; the earthquake and the lightning alone
can lay it low. But while this noble monument,
firm as the patriotism and courage of the men
to whom it is consecrated, shall mark upon yonder
hill the very spot where they deserved we'll of
their country, behold before us and around us,
wherever we move and whatever we look upon,
monuments not less expressive to their achieve
ments and their sacrifices, their principles and
their characters. 1t is all the fruit of their coun-
sels-the work of their hands-the price of their
blood The roof that shelters US, beneath which
are compacted the floating castles, on which you,
sir, Commodore Downs,) and your brave asso-
cates have borne the naval thunders of America
to the end of the earth does it not, hung as it is
with the banners of every nation, and none more
honored than our own, remind US of that tremen-
dous day, when, beneath summers sun and
canopy of smoke and flame from the blazing
dwellings of Charlestown, our fathers stood for
ri Nf hn
The formidable park of artillery, tier within tier,
which we passed as we came to this building,
how does it not contrast with the six poor field
pieces, for the most part miserably served and
soon Abandoned of the 18th June the noble
ships now dismantled, but ready at the first call
of duty to clothe themselves anew with the brave
ry and the terrors of war; one of them bearing
the name of mighty State (the Oho) of two mil
lions of souls, in which, when the battle of Bun
ker Hill was fought, the smoke of white mans
cabin had never curled on the breeze: ship
which has just returned from her cruise along
those golden shores of the Pacific, which have
lately been added to our great Republican en-
pire the very spot beneath our feet where the
royal army landed on the 18th June, ITS Il
say, fellow citizens, do not these objects each and
all constitute most expressive monument TO the
great men of that day? The successful issue of
the war is an abiding consequence of their cour-
age and fortitude. The purity of purpose, the
elevation of principle, the passion for rational
freedom, with which they engaged in the revou-
ton, laid the deep foundations of all our subse-
quent prosperity; of our growth in peace and our
success in war. 1t is these which have given us
the Union and the Constitution, which have sowed
our almost boundless domains with cities, and viii
lagos, and swarming millions, and stretched belt
of rising republics, in the lifetime of man, from
the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Friends and fellow citizens, it was among the
original objects for which the Bunker Hill Monu-
ment Association was formed, to perpetuae by
stated celebrations the glorious memory of the
18th of June, ITS. Its first purpose, of course,
was to erect an mperishable landmark on the spot
ITSELF to take bond of time and the vicisstudes
of human things; that they should never allow
this sacred enclosure to be mistaken or encroach-
ed upon; to present visible symbol to the latest
posterity of the veneration with which the Ameri
cans must ever regard the spot. But it was ano-
Their object of the Association, announced among
its earliest proceedings, to provide for the stated
commemoraton of the battle. We borrowed the
form of the monument from the structures of an
cient Egypt, but while it will stand, as we trust,
for ages as they have stood, we would not have
our monument to stand like the obelisks and py
ramids, silent mystery to the successive genera
tons that gaze upon them, ignorant in what age
VI |oiSulICH oilltquily, Wy Whoo0 ooihihonu, ioI
what purpose, they were erected. We wish that,
from time to time, there should go forth faithful
record of the glorious event, and of the all-mpor
tant principles to which the monument is conse-
Grated; that the traditions of this great act in the
revolutionary drama should be kept in fresh re-
membrance and while the majestic shaft itself,
from the clouds to which its towers, shall ad-
dress its. solemn eloquence to the eye, that the
pen and voice, to the end of time should interpret
its illustrlous significance to the understanding
and the heart.
But when | consider, feow-citizens, that but
seven years have elapsed since you were adj
dressed on the summit of Bunker Hill, on &C.
cason'of the completion of the Monument, by
the great master of American eloquence, and that
many present must freshly recolect that match
less strain to which they listened, from the same
lips, on this day twenty-five years ago, feel how
hopeless the task have undertaken. What can
attempt to say to you, on this great theme. which
was not on those occasions said in manner
which leaves nothing to be amended and nothing
to be added? Even if should confine myself to
a simple narrative of the events of the day, they
have been so frequently rehearsed by writer's and