The dollar weekly bulletin. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1862-1864, 1863-07-23
SPEECH OF Ex-PREsIDENT PIERCE.

: SPEECH OF E4-PRESIDENT PIERCE.
MY FRIENDS AND FELLOW CoUNTRYsfEE \
While l have com to preside at tn is NEE
ing, at your bidding, permit me to say tina
no comm and less imperative than your wis
on such an occasion, would have brought m
here; and l trust that in view of the grea
aggregation of personal relations which
thirty years of manhood life have formed
between us, you will recognize in this fact
warm reciprocatiou, on my part of the re
spect and affection which, in all that time,
have never failed to find on yours. w,
meet on the anniversary of a day haIlowed
by solemn mem ories. and sanctified as tn al
of the birth of the American Union. The
Declaration ofIndependence laid the founda
tion of our political greatness in the two
fu ndam entail ideas of the absolute indepen
dence of the American people. and of the
| sovereignty of their res pective States. Un-
der that standard our wise and heroic fore
| fathers fought the battle of the Revolution;
under that they conquered. In this spirit
! they established the Union, having the con-
servative thought ever present to their
minds, of the original sovereignty and in
| dependence of the several States, all with
their diverse institutions, interests, opinio ps
and habits, to be maintained intact and Sc
cure, by the reciprocal stipulations and mu :
| tual compromises of the Constitution. They
were master-b builders, who reared up the
grand structure of the Union, that august
| temple beneath whose dome three genera
tions have enjoyed such blessings of civil
| liberty as were never before vouchsafed by
Providence to man; that temple before
whose altsrs you and I have not only bowed
| with devout and grateful hearts; but where,
with patriotic VOWS and sacrifices, we have
so frequently consecrated ourselves to the
protection and maintenance of those lofty
columns Of the Constitution by which it was
upheld. Applause No visionary en-
thusiasts were they, dreaming vainlv of the
impossible uniformity of some wild Utopia
of their own imaginations, No desperate
reformers were they, madly bent upon
schemes which, if consummated, could only
result in general confusion, anarchy, and
chaos. Oh! no; high hearted, but sagacious
and practical statesm en- they were who saw
society as a living fact. not as a troubled
vision; who knew that national power con-
sists in the reconcilement of diversties of
institutions and interests, not their conflict
and obl:eratiou; and who saw that variety
aud adaptation of parts are the necessary
elements of all there is sublime or beautiful
in the works of art or of nature. Majestic
were the solid foundations, the massive ma
nifcent structure of the Union. Glorious
was theCareer of prosperity, and peace, and
power, upon VII ich, from its very birthday,
the Am erican Union entered, as with the
assured march of the conscious offspring OF
those giants of the Revolution. Such was
the Union, as conceived and Administered
by Washington and Adams. by Jefferson,
and Madison, and Jackson. Such, say,
toas the Urion, ere the evil times befal us;
ere the m ad ness of sectional hatreds and an
imosities possessed us; ere, in third genera
ton, the all-compreheusive patriotims of th e
Fathers had died out, and given place to the
passionate otious of narrow and aggres-
sive sectionalism. The Eastern States
covered the sea with their ships, the land
withe their farms and their manufactures;
so did the Middle Atlantic States, with
addltio of their mineral wealth of coal and
iron; while the Southern States, with their
bright, soft climate and coDgenial SOIL raised
up those great staples of cotton, tobacco, su-
gar, rice, corn, which are the life of COM
merce and manufactures; and the vast re-
gions of the West grew to be the grsnaries
of Europe and Am nerica; aud still further on
was revealed the land of gold and silver on
the remote shores of the Pacific. These
were the material elements of our national
terests, cooperating with the others to con-
stitute one harmonious whole. And so the
various European RACES, co-existing here,
though differing in blood, religion, temper,
the Protestan mt and Catholic, the Puritan and
the Cavalier; yet, by their differences OF
character r, afforded the mental and moral
elements of the power of the Union. Glori-
Gus, sublime above all that history records
of national greatness was thespectacle which
the Union exhibited to the world, so long
as the true spirit of the Constitution lively
in the hearts of the people, and the Govern
ment of men reciprocally respecting one an
others rights, and of States, each moving.
planet like, 10 the orbit of its proper place
In the armament of the Union. Then we
were the model Republic Of the world,
bouored, loved, or feared where we were not
loved; respected abroad, peaceful and happy
at home. No American citizen was then
subject to be driven into exile for opinions
sake, or arbitrarily arrested and incarcerated
in military bastiles-even as he may now oe
not for acts or words of imputed treason,
but i! he 20 but mourn iD silent sorrow over
the desolation of his couutry-Lspplausel; ];
DO embattled hosts of Americans were then
wasting their lives and resources in sauguin-
airy civil strife; no suicidal and parricidal
civil war then swept like raging tempes
of death over the stricken nome steads an 7
wailing cities of the Union. Oh! that sued
change should have come over our coun-
sry in Gay, as it were-as if all men in
every State of the Union-North and South,
East and West--were suddenly smitteu
with homicldal madness, and 'the custom ol
fell deeds" rendered as familiar as if it were
part of our Unborn nature; as 4 an avengiug
angel had been suffered by Providence tc
wave a sword of flaming fire above oul
heads, to convert 50 many millions OF good
.0TJGt 81 sf'c me 'A5F s'4i- - f'.a ar *