PANEGYRIC ON AMERICA. 53 last experiment of self-government by the people. We have begun it under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. We are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been checked by the oppressions of tyranny. Such as we are we have been from the beginning, simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to self-government and to self-respect. The Atlantic rolls between us and any formidable foe. Within our own territory, stretching through many degrees of latitude and longitude, we have the choice of many products, and many means of independence. The government is mild, the press is free, religion is free, knowledge reaches or may reach every home. What fairer prospect of success could be presented? What means more adequate to accomplish the sublime end? What more is necessary, than for the people to preserve what they themselves created? Already has the age caught the spirit of our institutions. It has already ascended the Andes, and snuffed the breezes of both oceans. It has infused itself into the life-blood of Europe, and warmed the sunny plains of France and the lowlands of Holland. It has touched the philosophy of Germany and the North, and moving onward to the South, has opened to Greece the lessons of her better days. Can it be that America under such circumstances can betray herself? Can it be that she is to be added to the catalogue of republics, the inscription upon whose ruins is, "They were, but they are not"? Forbid it, my countrymen! Forbid it, Heaven! PANEGYRIC ON AMERICA. CHARLES PHILLIPS. THE mention of America has never failed to fill me with the most lively emotions. In my earliest infancy, that tender season when impressions, at once the most permanent and the most powerful, are likely to be excited, the story of her then recent struggle raised a throb in every heart that loved liberty, and wrung a reluctant tribute even from discomfited oppression. I saw her spurning alike the luxuries that would enervate, the legions that would intimidate, dashing from her lips the poisoned cup of European servitude; through all the vicissitudes of her protracted conflict, displaying a magnanimity that defied misfortune, and a moderation that gave new grace to victory. It was the first vision of my childhood, it will descend with me to the grave. But if, as a man, I venerate the mention of America, what must be my feelings towards her as an Irishman! Never! oh, never! while memory remains, can Ireland forget the home of her emigrant, and the asylum of her exile. No matter whether their sorrows sprung from the errors of enthusiasm or the realities of suffering, from fancy or infliction, that must be reserved for the scrutiny of those whom the lapse of time shall acquit of partiality, it is for men of other ages to investigate and record it; but surely, it is for the men of every age to hail the hospitality that received the shelterless, and love the feeling that befriended the unfortunate. Search creation round and where can you find a country that presents so sublime a view, so interest ing in anticipation? What noble institutions! What a comprehensive policy! What a wise equalization of every political advantage! The oppressed of all countries, the martyr of every creed, the innocent victim of despotic arrogance or superstitious frenzy, may there find refuge; his industry encouraged, his piety respected, his ambition animated, with no restraint but those laws which are the same LOVE OF JUSTICE. 55 to all, and no distinction but that which his merit may originate. Who can deny that the existence of such a country presents a subject of human congratulation? Who can deny that its gigantic advancement offers a field for the most rational conjecture? At the end of the very next century, if she proceeds as she seems to promise, what a wondrous spectacle may she not exhibit! Who shall say for what purpose a mysterious Providence may not have designed her? Who shall say that, when in its follies or its crimes the Old World may have buried all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, human nature may not find its destined renovation in the New World? LOVE OF JUSTICE. THEODORE PARKER. GENTLEMEN, it is no part of my Christianity to "send the mother who bore me into eternal bondage," nor will I suffer the commissioners to steal my friends, to kidnap my brother man. I love my country, my kindred of humanity; I love my God, the Father of the white man and of the black man, and am I to suffer the liberty of America to be trodden under the hoof of slave-drivers, or of the judicial slaves of slave-drivers? I was neither born nor bred for that. One raw morning in spring, Hancock and Adams, the Moses and Aaron of that great deliverance, were both at Lexington. They had "obstructed an officer," with brave words. British soldiers, a thousand strong, came to seize them, and carry them over seas for trial, and so nip the bud of freedom auspiciously opening in that early spring. The town militia came together before daylight, "for training." A tall man, with a large head, and a high, wide brow, their captain, one who had " seen service," marshalled them into line, numbering but seventy, and bade " every man load his piece with powder and ball." "I will order the first man shot that runs away," said he, when some faltered. "Don't fire unless fired upon; but if they want to have a war, let it begin here." Gentlemen, you know what followed. Those farmers and mechanics "fired the shot heard round the world." A little monument covers the bones of such as before had pledged their fortune and their sacred honor to the freedom of America, and that day gave it also their lives. I was born in that little town, and bred up amid the memories of that day. When a boy, my mother lifted me up, one Sunday, in her religious, patriotic arms, and held me while I read the first monumental line I ever saw, "Sacred to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind." I have studied the memorial marbles of Greece and Rome in many an ancient town, nay, on Egyptian obelisks, have read what was written before the Eternal roused up Moses to lead Israel out of Egypt, but no chiselled stone ever stirred me to such emotion as these rustic names of men who fell "In the sacred cause of God and their country." Since then Gentlemen, the spirit of liberty, the love of justice, was early fanned into a flame in my boyish heart. That monument covers the bones of my own kinsfolks. It was their blood which reddened the long, green grass at Lexington. It was my own name which stands chiselled on that stone. The tall captain who marshalled his fellow-farmers and mechanics into stern array, and spoke such brave and dangerous words FOUNDATION OF BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 57 as opened the war of American Independence, the last to leave the field, was my father's father. I learned to read out of his Bible; and with a musket he that day captured from the foe, I learned also another religious lesson; that "rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." I keep them both, "sacred to liberty and the rights of mankind"; to use them both" in the sacred cause of God and my country." FOUNDATION OF BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. DANIEL WEBSTER. THE foundation of Bunker Hill Monument we have now laid. With solemnities suited to the occasion, with prayers to Almighty God for his blessing, and in the midst of this cloud of witnesses, we have begun the work. We trust it will be prosecuted, and that, springing from a broad foundation, rising high in massive solidity and unadorned grandeur, it may remain as long as Heaven permits the works of man to last, a fit emblem both of the events in memory of which it is raised and of the gratitude of those who have reared it. We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is most safely deposited in the universal remembrance of mankind. We know that if we could cause this structure to ascend, not only till it reached the skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surface could still contain but part of that which in an age of knowledge hath already been spread over the earth, and which history charges itself with making known to all future times. We know that no inscription on entablatures less broad than the earth itself, can carry information of the events we commemorate where it has not already gone; and that no structure |