The daily republic. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1853-1853, 1853-07-08


frequently need the spur. Laughaer.l There Is
a principle OF progress in the human mind--in all
the works Of mon . hands--in all iations and
communities, from III village club to The empire
that embraces quarter Of the human race--in
all political istitutions-in art, literature, and
tries, where it must, from the nature Of the c.se
be the leading and governing principle [Great
cheers. Who can compare tho modern world.
its condition, its arts, its institutions, with the
ancient world, and doubt this' The daily news
papers, smoking every morning from a hun
dred presses, with strip of hieroglyphics on
the side of an obelisk, perplexing the world
with its dubious import, and even that found
out within the last thirty years; the ocean
steamer with the row galley, creeping timidly
round the shore--the railways in the United
States alone, without mentioning those of Eu-
rope, with those famous Roman paved roads, the
Appian and Flaminan way, to which the orator
alluded-which railways exceed tenfold in
extent, to say nothing of their superiority in
ry other respect, az means of communication;
the printing press, driven by steam, with the
scribes toilsome pen; the electric telegraph, with
the mail-coach, the post-horse, the pedestrian
courier; and, above all, a representative republ-
can Confederacy, extending over continent,
with feudal despotism building a palace on the
cy, subsistng its citizens by public largess, deem
ing all labor servile, ostracsing its good men, in
sulting and Expressing its allies, and rending its
vitals within the circuit of the city walls to
which it was confned--who, say, can make this
comparison, and doubt that the principle of pro-
gress is deeply seated in nature as the prin-
ciple of conservatism, and that true practical
wisdom and high national policy reside in the due
mixture and joint action of the two. [Enthusas-
tic applause.
Now, sir, this was the wisdom of the men of
'76. This is the lesson of the Fourth of July;
this the oracle which speaks to us from the shrines
of this consccrated hall. [Great cheering If
we study the writings of the men of that day, we
find that they treated the cause of civil liberty not
only one Of justice and right, of sentiment and
feeling, but also one of history and tradition,
of charters and laws Cheers. They not only
looked to the future, but they explored the past.
They built wisely and skifufly, in such sort that
after-times might extend the stately front of the
temple of freedom, and enlarge its spacious
courts, and pile it's stories arch above arch, gale
ry above gallery, to the heavens; [great cheers;
but they dug the foundations deep down to the
eternal rock; the town, the school, the militia,
the church--these were the four corner-stones OH
which they reared the edifce. Enthusiastic
cheers. 5a4@
five look only at one part of their work-f we
see them pouring over musty parchments by the
midnight lamp-citng the year-books against
writs of misunderstanding themselves hoarse
about this phrase in the charter of Charles the
First, and that section in statute of Edward the
Third, we should be disposed to class them with
the most bigot6d conservatives that ever threw a
drag-chan around the limbs of young and ar
dent people. [Cheers. But, gracious heavens,
look at them again, when the trumpet sounds the
hour Of resstance survey the other aspect of their
work. Great cheering. See these undaunted
patriots i'll their obscure caucus gatherings, in
their town meetings, in their provincial assem-
bles in their Continental Congress, breathing de-
fancc to the British Parliament and the British
throne; march with their raw militia to the con-
flct with the trained veterans Of the seven years
war, [cheers;l witness them, group of colonies
extemporized into Confederacy, entering with a
calm sef-possession into alliance with the Oldest
monarchy in Europe; and occupying- as they did
a narrow belt of territory along the coast, thinly
peopled, partially cleared-hemmed in by the ma
tive savage, by the Alleghanies, by the Ohio, and
the lakes-behold them dilating with the gran
deur of the position radiant in the prospective glo-
ries Of their career, much cheering;] casting
abroad the germs of future independent States,
destined, at no distant day, not merely to cover
the face of the thirteen British colonies, but to
spread over the territories of France and Spain
on this continent-over Florida and Louisiana
over Nesf Mexico and Cafornia-beyond the
Mississippi, beyond the Rocky Mountains
unite 1.-THE Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, the
Arctic and the Torrd zones, in one great net
work of confederate republican government.
Contemplate this, and you will acknowledge the
men of seventy-six to have been the boldcst men
of progress that the world has ever seen. [El-
thusiastic cheers.
These the men whom the Fourth of July
invites us to respect and to initiate; the James
Otses and the Warrens the Franklns and the
Adalnsos the Patrick Henrys and the Jeffersons,
and him whom may not name in the plural
number brightest of the bright and purest of the
pure--W aslington himself. [Rapturous APP
plause.] But let us be sure to initiate them Cor
to strive to do SOY in all their great principles in
cy. Applause. Let us reverence them as they
reverenced their predecessors--not seeking to
build up the future on the ruins of all that had
gone before, yet to bind down the living,
breathing, burning present to the Wondering re-
lies of the dead past--[cheers] but deducing the
rule of bold and safe progress from the records
ola wise and glorious experience. [Great APP
plause.
| am trespassing unconsciously, sir, upon the
time of the company; $500 OIL, 20 on;"1 but |
will, with your leave, add one further reflection.
We live at an era as evcntful, in my Judgment,
as that of seventy-sx, though in different way.
We have no foreign yoke to throw off, but in the
discharge of the duty devolved upon us by Provi-
dencc we have to carry the republican indepen-
dence which our fathers achieved, with all the or
ganized institutions of an enlightened community,
institutions of religion, law, education, charity,
art, and all the thousand graces of the highest
culture, beyond the Missouri, beyond the Sierra
Nevada; perhaps in time around the circuit of
the Antilles; perhaps to the Archipelagoes of the
Central Pacific. [Great cheering. The pioneers
are on the way; who can tell how far and how
fast they will travel; who that compares the
North America of 1853, but century ago, and
numbering but little over million of souls of
European origin, or still more the North America
of 1853, when there was certainly not fifth part
of that number; who that compares this with the
North America of lS53-its twenty-five millions
of European origin, and its thirty-o States-wll
venture to assign limits to our growth--will dare
to compute the timetable of railway progress,
or lift 50 much as n corner Of the curtain that
hides the crowded events of the coming century!
the Old World is rocking to its foundations. From
the Gulf of Finland to the Yellow Sea every