The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1863-04-15
An Essay by samuel 8. Harc.


f trict Nc. 8, Butler Township, Richland county
: on the anniversary of Washington's birthday
"Freedom /: gem dropped from Heaven
casket and set .in our. country's coronet. -
Nature knows no change of law. thousand
/ LOT times the earth has made its circuit roun,
the sun, leaving the record of its travels on tn
. records of time. Successive millions of human
beings, chained by an irresistible fate to th
same orbit, have been attendants on the roll
ing globe, in its ceaseless revolutions, gather
ing up its scattered memora nda, for deposit il
the worlds forth coming archives And vel
the earth itself remains unchanged. The
same rivers flow on to join the same blue
ocean the same mountains look upward to the
SKIES and tho same valleys reposc beneath
their shadows .es
4 Venus despatched as cheering smiles, envel-
ops of light as beautiful, over the same radi.
an telegraph of sunbeams, six thousand years
ago as she does to night the breezes that dal-
| lied with the ourls OF Judea's daugh ters, DIFF
fered not from those that kiss the cheeks and
linger on tho brow of Americans maidens.
the same law that bade the little flowers ex-
hale their sweet perfume on IsreaIs shore,
gives their sweet fragrance to-day The stat
utes of the universe have never been repealed,
neither have they been revised. With man it
is not sol Mutation strewe with flowers or
thistles, every step up life's stairway. Al
though physically compelled to ride through
space on this huge, huge globe that goes rolling
and bowling about the sun, and spinning
about its axis too, he cannot initiate its con-
stantly unchanging and recurring motion, but
builds his little national orb--rolIs il on
ward and upward for few revolutions and
then throwing it from its axis, hurls il into
reversing it's motion, turning it the other way
andsd estroying the laws that first gave it sue
cess. And as nation after nation have. met
the stern waves of destiny and weakly strug-
gle with that fate which human follies have |
created, but human wisdom could not avert |
the monuments of their respective virtues.
have arisen to. vindicate the highest gifts of
God to man-Freedom. A complete or par
tial bondage seems for many centuries, if rot
mans nature, to have been his sfate. But it
has been left or country to give the world
1eW 4axamplo in harmony ithlits- highest
good. Though. an Alexander would have
made moro worlds to conquer though Caesar
would have crossed scond rubicon and
Napoleon would have created universal en-
lire !; whilela Socrates, Virgil, and Locke,
Vould have sent forth the sublimest phyloso-
'hy, the sweetest pocsy and the profoundest
Tisdom, yet amid all these gigantic efforts .of
he world, all these monuments of liberty, old :
ime himself has ever seen, piled one upon
he other, would be to the one erected in our t
md like thelschool boys snow ball to tie ]
rashing avalanche, or the quivering tear that
ows down virtues manly cheek, to the rolling
epths of the Atlantic basin. American /
reedom! born upon the barren rocks of Ply t
louth; held in check by no despotic scepter; G
,ttered by no courtiers arrogance; too strong b
'r the chsins forged in expressions fur
ace; and to resolute to yield to mon n
chs dictates it went forth in life's morn n
lg march when its spirit was young t,
pened a new era to the watching world f
atured the hopes of rising nation entered f
anhood's prime under the fostering care of 8,
Gorge Washington published its manifesto, n
I'd spread the glad tidings that now bind us d
ith silver bands, the loyal hearts of free b
people, and inscribed upon tho b
lseen tablet of our nations future, glo- d
ous destiny. American freedom It is the Of
orlds great time piece of progress. And o,
om every quarter of the globe is heard as
nding voice after voice, exclaiming, what of
g hour and as the minute hand glides round
e surface, tick after tick, with every inter.
ming echo is caught up by the breeze of
form, and borne away to earth's remotest
raefe, stamping with telegraphic rapidity m
d precision, the lessons of our prosperity "
en- the worlds great palpitating heart. to
i'd when, with the rolling years, the hour as
nd has completed its circuit, every. tyrant, q
cry despot, and every foe of freedom; trem- ha a
IS like the aspen, when it peals forth its N,
gic tones of power, the tocsin of liberty's st:
til, and the death knell of oppression. Our ih
hers met in Americas first workshops and fol
IN the glowing forge of patriotism, they &.
- -. - M, ''7-IIs - th
'ae eniPire oioeA VI + na'iou m .. iney Placeo of
It key in the hands of a Washington from m,
ON it has descended, adorned with 6del-- tn,
IS honors and the brigh lustre of we'll IN tn
ot faith. But to-day as The dark cloud of - "a
il eommotion gathers and grows blacker, Be,
reckless hands of treason aud fanatlclsm
uld, with blood-stained fingers, fain pluck Inc
sjewels from the worlds cronometer, and
+ from its position the handspring of ma;
is only hope. They have broken but few wa
.he works, yet they have damaged to con- fit
srable extent the fine mechanism of that for
structure, and unless speedily rescued
entirely demolish it. But thank God wa wa
old clock keeps time, and we hope and fgl
st it will, until treason and her nefarious tho
aries, palised by poison, self administered, of
Il fall beneath the crumblipg ruins of mad vie