Year: 1865

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:


Some one has remarked that the two most
important events in the life of an individual
are his birth and death. The thought may
aptly be significant Of the rise and fall Of
nations. Genius, Rhetoric and Poetry have
seized whatever there was of greatness, and
grandeur, and glory of the past, and woven
them into the texture of history, as threads
of silver or gold are skillfully wrought in the
warp and woof of the silken web These
shattered put glittering monuments of once
national existences faded from our vision as
the gorgeous splendor of the sunlight upon
the mountain top, as the hight swiftly chases
the day.


This rise and fall of nations, this ebb and
flow of empires, is the development of the
great law Of living. imperishable thought
In all these political revolutions and dynastic
changes, amid this crush and crash of pow
ers, and principalities, and states, we see the
stern, gigantic struggle Of Thought, bursting
the cerements of intellectual and spiritual
bondage. reaching up after the Light.


The history of the world is the persistent
effort Of mind to get into harmony with those
great laws that lie at the foundation Of civil
and religious liberty. True progress is the
product of mind penetrated by truth. They
are bound as closely as the Siamese twins :;
you sever the tie that links them together and
they die. As years are repaired to mature
the human body, so ages are necessary to
develop and bring to its full strength the
eyOlutions OF thought.


Gigantic errors have sprung from the
active brain, and like the Pyramids in the
sand plains, shroudel in solemn, lonely. des
olate grandeur, they mark grand epochs in
the past Centuries in their steady march
have witnessed the growth Of the human
mind. from feeble infancy into the vigor of
youth, the exhuberance and elasticity of
young manhood, till, in the present century,
thought exhibits such vitality. such vast ca
pilities for research, such fertility in inven-
ton, such resistless energy in the pursuit of
knowledge and truth, such an insight into
the laws of nature, such bold and confident
handling Of the elements and forces of ma
ture that are ever playing around US, that we
may almost claim to have realized the tradi-
ton that somewhere in the western world
there was fountain, Of which, if man
drank, perpetual youth woul be preserved
in him. This fountain is the bursting firth
ofHring thought penetrated by eterHat truth.


The foot prints of the past are engraved in
deep and enduring characters upon the broad
eventfnl page Of the nineteenth century. The
scattered rays Of light that struggled their
way down through the dark ages, some of
them so thin they glideG on unperceived by
ge.eration after generation, are gathered in
the focus of the mental vision of the present
age. enabling the mind to trace back the
great principles Of progress to their original
source.


We need not to day linger amid the faded
glories of the Greek and Roman republics. to
inspire our patriotism, or awaken in our bo-
SONS a profounder veneration for the great
principles of civil liberty. We need not rev.
erently enter the temples and bend the knee
to affairs dedicated to Liberty, in the sepul-
chres of the dead past, to catch raw of light
to kindle our enthusiasm and quicken our
fervor and animate our zeal in support Of
those selfevident truths" so ftly expressed
in our Declaration of Independence. This
immortal paper states the problem of fpersoHol
freedom and citizen'S rights in the most per.
spicuous language.


The history of our republic has more per-
fectly solved this problem than that Of any
other that has come down to us. How emf
nently appropriate is it that we should com
memorate the day that gave to the world the
great Charter of Freedom. The fathers of
the American Republic, in bequeathing this
noble charter to their posterity, invested the
most sacred rights of man in perpetuity, and
their children have not proven strange plants
of degenerate vine. They have cherished,
with the liveliest emotion, the noble resolve
to stern endurance, the bold yet temperate
independence the excellent virtues and - ir-
repressible" love of liberty that charactized
our Puritan fathers.


The noble Roman youth were wont to hang
in their room the portraits of their family,
and of the Emperor who was distinguished
for his civic virtues or martial deeds, as an
Indictment to initiate their virtues, and emu
late their valor on the battle field. The youth
of America see the virtues of their ancestors
shining in increasing beauty and expanding
worth from every school house, academy and
college; from every press, church and mis-
sionary society in this great land their deeds
OF volor are written upon the soil of New
England, New York, Virginia and South
Carolina. Americas Free Institutions are
the magnificent portraits dpon which every
generation may look with reverence and
growing admiration, for the greatness and
goodness of our Puritan fathers.


We cannot dwell to-day upon the particu-
lars OF that long contest with the British
sovereign, IN which the children struggled to
remain loyal to their king, and at the same
time be permitted the exercise, in its broad


est sense, OF that principle enunciated on


ooard OF the May Flower, that in the new
colony they would be governed bv those


just and equal laws" that would be for the


general good" of all. We cannot Inner
along the years in which the tbongbr Of
freedom and Independence was slowly hut
surely taking form and shape. A hnndred


years before the colonies Joined together TO


resist the act of Parliament to tax them not


having represen; alton in the British House


Massachusetts gave its first martvr in onno


sition to monarchy, and g Democratic libar.
ty" its first victim to the block.


The great thought of personal libertv
sprang from source back of earthly govern.


ments, back of Magma Chartas, back of o.
clesiastical councils, back of statute laws and
leoirlativ euartrnents. n ra. , -.