The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-07-09
: ~, g, .,so tte feast of Purim to

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thew perpetuate through all time the lnh-s
mite coudescension of God. And so it is in
regard to this festive. joyful, glorious day.
The 4tb of July, 1851, beheld the hardy
sons of the North and South Frightening
their armor for the bloody combat. Their
battle-ground was continent, their audi
dence was the world. The 4th OF July, 1862,
found the North in mourning over the slain
of the Chicahominy, the South rejoicing IN
success. The 4th of July, 1868, and the
North had shattered into atoms the legions
of the South at Vicksburg and Gettysburg.
On the Nations's birth day, 1864, both sec
lions were ready for the final strength. Ere
another anniversary, the North is victorious,
the South is yanquished, Democracy and
freedom have triumphed rebellion and
slavery have died.
I need not review the struggle which pre-
coded and succeeded the Declaration of In
dependence. Your own minds are familiar
with the terrible privations OF the revolu-
tionary soldiers, who amid the SHOWS of Vir-
ginia winters, amid the deadly malaria of
the Carolina swamps, amid the bleak winds
that sweep our ocean shore, amid the deadly
heats of the Mississippi, confronted the
mercenary men, butchers of Brunswick, and
the ingenious masters of the scaping knife
and tomahawk from the banks of the st.
Lawrence. Noble men, they left their dis
tant homes to die for us and all mankind.
See these undaunted patriots in their OBJ
scure caucus gatherings, in their town meet
ings, in their provincial assemblies, in their
continental Congress, breathing defiance to
the British Parliament and the British
throne, marching with their raw militia to
the conflict with the trained veterans of the
seven years war; Witness there group of
Colonies, eXtemporised into COnfederacy,
entering with calm self-possesSion into al
lance with the oldest monarchy of Europe,
and occupying as they did a narrow belt of
territory along the coast, thinly peopled,
partially cleared, hemmed in by the native
savages,by the Aleghanies, by the Ohio and
the Lakes behind them, dilating with the
grandeur of the position, radiant in the
prospective glories of their career. Contem-
plate this, as Everett truly says, and you will
acknowledge the men of seventy-siX to have
been the noblest men of progress the world
has ever seen.
TFe commemorate IN the first place, the
greatness Of our physical and territorial
advantages. In the performance of this
sacred duty we have an illustrious mod
ell, for we find that Moses when viewing the
promised land, described it as good land,
a land of brooks of depths, that spring
out of vall1es and hills, Il land of oil,
olive and honey. Israel is compared to
a valley full of fertility, and watered by
unfailing streams-to a garden by the
side of rivers, covered with beauty and lux
uriance, and sustained in perpetual fertility,
forest in which the trees are planted by
God-to the lion which even cunning no
hunter can approach, but which terriies the
forest. All of which images, which though
they may not affect us, yet to theEastern
imagination unqucstionably conveyed ideas
of exquisite loneliness, the most eXtraordin-
airy power and the most singular fertility
In like manner, we American citizens might
speak of the peerless position of the rich
variety of plain, hill and dale-of our pro-
auctions, varied, so abundant, so valu-
able of our lakes, rivers, mountains, prairies;
of our cities, in wealth, population and in
magnifcence rivalling the oldest in the world.
Where throughout the wide extended globe
Is there country more blessed by all the
gifts of nature than our own? Columbia is
grand and beautiful country-a land of
unexampled fertility-traversed with Won
der by the stranger who sees tract after tract
of cultivated ground like one vast garden,
counting his gaze in every direction. The en-
igrations to the United States are without par
allel in the history of the world. From
every nation they are focking to the West,
they come,
e As the winds come, when forests are rended,
They come as the waves come, when navies
are stranded"
If the ratios of our past increase can be re-
lied on, the population of the country will
be in 1880, more than one hundred millions.
A step further in the calculation presents a
prospect still more sublime and wonderful,
1860, this mighty mass of commingled races
will have swollen to the stupendous aggre-
Crat q of tNNn hnn(lrn1 mil
fourth the present population of all the
earth. Where is that prodigious increase of
numbers, this vast extension OF emigration
to end Where will its mighty boundaries
terminate? They will crowd each hemis-
phere, they will spurn both tropics. Its
watch towers will shine on every shore, and
be reflected back from every deep. Nature
has set no bounds to the round growth of
this mighty Republic. A new moral swell
ing upwards, grading all the arts of lite.
and exorting rapid emmigrations Ours is,
indeed, Il wonderful country-vast in the i'm
mense extent of its territory-yast il the
magnificent scale and grandeur ofits scenery,
vast in the unparalleled riches of mineral
resources-vast i'll its majestic rivers and lof-
ty mountains. We realize on an extraorlin-
airy scale the splendid description ofthe orna-
mental edging of the bucller of Achilles
ANO" tiS DlOao COuplClc, The ARTIST
crowned
With his last hand, and poured the ocean round
In living silver seemed the waves to roll
And beat the buckler's verge and bound the
whole''
There may he other countries where more
of physical beauty and variety charms the
eye than in America: where less of variable
ness and gloom marks the atmosphere:
where softer gales fan, and sweeter flowers
perfume; where more enamelIed meads DIS
play themselves, and more melodious
waterfalls murmur on the ear; where more
of the luxuriance of nature is blended with
greater triumph of art, and where more
glorious skies and constant weather bestow
elasticity and health to the human frame.
and there may be lands where the stream of
philosophy has wider sweep and deeper
flow; where learning finds more devoted adj
herents, and where liberty, at least in theory,
is more highly praised but there is no other
land, IN either hemisphere, which, on the
whole can vie with Columbia. She stands,
as she has long stood, the fairest form of
government ever known on earth.
We conanaenaorote also today the ciyI and
7pIiDiOnS Ijborfv Ior1oI,,