Part 17 (1/2)

Escape fro its religious hierarchies, but the continued possession and enjoyment of its science and arts, its literature, and itsin the colony the overn it;

Equality of rights;

Representative asseovernment founded on popular elections

Few topics are , or more fit for philosophical discussion, than the effect on the happiness of mankind of institutions founded upon these principles; or, in other words, the influence of the New World upon the Old

Her obligations to Europe for science and art, laws, literature, and ratitude

The people of the United States, descendants of the English stock, grateful for the treasures of knowledge derived frolish ancestors, ad those ancestors, under the culture of Hampden and Sydney and other assiduous friends, that seed of popular liberty first gerht, until its branches overshadow all the land

But America has not failed to ation, or equalled it by others of like weight, she has, at least,the debt And she ad in the e, a nation ah part which she is expected to act, for the general advancement of human interests and human welfare

American mines have filled the mints of Europe with the precious metals

The productions of the American soil and climate have poured out their abundance of luxuries for the tables of the rich, and of necessaries for the sustenance of the poor Birds and animals of beauty and value have been added to the European stocks; and transplantations froled themselves profusely with the elland

America has made contributions to Europe far more important Who can estimentation of the commerce of the world that has resulted froine to himself ould now be the shock to the Eastern Continent, if the Atlantic were no longer traversable, or if there were no longer American productions, or American markets?

But America exercises influences, or holds out exaher, because they are of a moral and political character

America has furnished to Europe proof of the fact, that popular institutions, founded on equality and the principle of representation, are capable of hts of person, property, and reputation

America has proved that it is practicable to elevate the mass of , or lower class,--to raise them to self-respect, to reat duty of self-government; and she has proved that this e She holds out an exa than ever was presented before, to those nine tenths of the human race who are born without hereditary fortune or hereditary rank

Aton! And if our A else, that alone would have entitled theton! ”First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countryton is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the people of the United States hold him prove them to be worthy of such a countryhest honor on his country I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the intelligence of Europe and the world, what character of the century, upon the whole, stands out in the relief of history, most pure, most respectable,to unaniton!

The structure now standing before us, by its uprightness, its solidity, its durability, is no unfit emblem of his character His public virtues and public principles were as firm as the earth on which it stands; his personal motives, as pure as the serene heaven in which its suh a fit, it is an inadequate eh above the column which our hands have builded, beheld, not by the inhabitants of a single city or a single State, but by all the farandeur of the character and life of Washi+ngton In all the constituents of the one, in all the acts of the other, in all its titles to immortal love, admiration, and renown, it is an American production It is the embodiment and vindication of our Transatlantic liberty Born upon our soil, of parents also born upon it; never for a ht of the Old World; instructed, according to the modes of his time, only in the spare, plain, but wholesoe which our institutions provide for the children of the people; growing up beneath and penetrated by the genuine influences of Ae a in our great destiny of labor, our long contest with unreclailory, the war of Independence, our great victory of peace, the formation of the Union, and the establishment of the Constitution; he is all, all our own! Washi+ngton is ours That crowded and glorious life,

”Wherefore rooreater multitudes that were to come,”--

that life was the life of an American citizen

I claim him for America In all the perils, in every darkened moment of the state, in theof friends, I turn to that transcendent nae and for consolation To him who denies or doubts whether our fervid liberty can be combined with laith order, with the security of property, with the pursuits and advanceovern exaltation of soul, and the passion of true glory; to hi to the stock of great lessons and great exaton!

And now, friends and fellow-citizens, it is tied in gratifying recollections of the past, in the prosperity and pleasures of the present, and in high hopes for the future But let us reations to perfors which we enjoy Let us re to the rich inheritance which we have received from our fathers Let us feel our personal responsibility, to the full extent of our power and influence, for the preservation of the principles of civil and religious liberty And let us ree, that can overnreat truth, that coovernment is respectable, which is not just; that without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no nity to political society In our day and generation let us seek to raise and iraded, but for an elevated and improved future And when both we and our children shall have been consigned to the house appointed for all living, loith equal fervor a those to whom our names and our blood shall have descended! And then, when honored and decrepit age shall lean against the base of this athered round it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious events hich it is connected, there shall rise from every youthful breast the ejaculation, ”Thank God, I--I also--AM AN AMERICAN!”