gazed in fear, and foes in scorn; but fear is lost in joy, and scorn is turning to wonder. The great experiment has succeeded. Mankind behold the spectacle of a land, whose crown is wisdom, whose mitre is purity, whose heraldry is talent; a land, where public sentiment is supreme, and where every man may erect the pyramid of his own fair fame. They behold, they believe, and they will imitate. The day is coming, when thrones can no longer be supported by parchment rolls. It is not a leaf of writing, signed and sealed by three frail, mortal men, that can forever keep down suffering millions; these will rise! they will point to another scroll; to that, of whose bold signers our THREE* remain; our THREE, whose "alliance" was, indeed, a "holy" one, for it met the approving smile of a Holy God! Many must suffer defeat, and many must taste of death, but freedom's battle will yet be fought and won. As heaven unbinds the intellect of man, his own right arm will rescue his body. Liberty will yet walk abroad in the gardens of Europe. Her hand will pluck the grapes of the south, her eye will warm the snow-drifts of the north. The crescent will go down in blood, from that "bright clime of battle and of song," for which He died, that noble Briton, that warrior-bard, who raised his generous arm like La Fayette, who struck his golden lyre to La Fayette's great Leader! And to this young land will belong the praise. The struggling nations point to our example, and in their own tongues repeat the cheering language of our sympathy. Already, when a master-spirit towers among them, they call him-their Washington. Along the foot of the Andes, they breathe in gratitude the name of Clay;-by the ivy-buried ruins of the Parthenon, they bless the eloquence of Webster! * John Adams, Charles Carroll, Thomas Jefferson the surviving signers of the Declaration of Independence. Fellow-Citizens, my imperfect task is ended. I have told you an old tale, but you will forgive that, for it is one of your country's glory. You will forgive me that I have spoken of the simple creatures who were here from the beginning, for it was to tell you how much had been wrought for you by Piety: you will forgive me that I have lingered round the green graves of the dead, for it was to remind you how much had been achieved for you by Patriotism. Forgive me, did I say? Would you have forgiven me, if I had not done this? Could I, ought I, to have wasted this happy hour in cold and doubtful speculation, while your bosoms were bounding with the holy throb of gratitude? Oh! no; it was not for that you came up hither. The groves of learning, the halls of wisdom, you have deserted; the crowded mart, the chambers of beauty, you have made solitary—that here, with free, exulting voices, before the only throne at which the free can end, your hearts might pour forth their full, gushing ribute to the benefactors of your country. On that country heaven's highest blessings are descending. I would not, for I need not, use the language of inflation; but the decree has gone forth; and as sure as the blue arch of creation is in beauty above us, so sure will it span the mightiest dominion that ever shook the earth. Imagination cannot outstrip reality, when it contemplates our destinies as a people. Where nature slept in her solitary loveliness, villages, and cities, and states, have smiled into being. A gigantic nation has been born. Labor and art are adorning, and science is exalting, the land that religion sanctified, and liberty redeemed. From the shores to the mountains, from the regions of frost to the vallies of eternal spring, myriads of bold and understanding men are uniting to strengthen a government of their own choice, and perpetuate the institutions of their own creation. The germe wafted over the ocean, has struck its deep root in the earth, and raised its high head to the clouds. Man looked in scorn, but Heaven beheld, and blessed Its branchy glories, spreading o'er the West. No summer gaude, the wonder of a day, A giant oak, it lifts its lofty form, Greens in the sun, and strengthens in the storm. Till time's last whirlwind sweep the vaulted sky. AN ORATION. DELIVERED AT CAMBRIDGE, ON THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE OF THE UNITED DECLARATION OF THE STATES OF AMERICA: INDEPENDENCE BY EDWARD EVERETT. FELLOW CITIZENS, It belongs to us with strong propriety, to celebrate this day. The town of Cambridge, and the county of Middlesex, are filled with the vestiges of the Revolution; whithersoever we turn our eyes, we behold some memento of its glorious scenes. Within the walls, in which we are now assembled, was convened the first provincial Congress, after its adjournment at Concord. The rural magazine at Medford reminds us of one of the earliest acts of British aggression. The march of both divisions of the Royal army, on the memorable nineteenth of April, was through the limits of Cambridge; in the neighboring towns of Lexington and Concord, the first blood of the Revolution was shed; in West Cambridge, the royal convoy of provisions was, the same day, gallantly surprised by the aged citizens, who stayed to protect their homes, while their sons pursued the foe. Here the first American army was formed; from this place, on the seventeenth of June, was detached the Spartan band, that immortalized the heights of Charlestown, and consecrated that day, with blood and fire, to the cause of American Liberty. Beneath the venerable elm, which still shades the southwestern corner of the common, General Washington first unsheathed his sword at the head of an American army, and to that seat* was wont every *The first wall pew, on the right hand of the pulpit. Sunday to repair, to join in the supplications which were made for the welfare of his country. How changed is now the scene! The foe is gone! The din and the desolation of war are passed; Science has long resumed her station in the shades of our venerable University, no longer glittering with arms; the anxious war-council is no longer in session, to offer a reward for the discovery of the best mode of making salt-petre,-an unpromising stage of hostilities, when an army of twenty thousand men is in the field in front of the foe; the tall grass now waves in the trampled sally-port of some of the rural redoubts, that form a part of the simple lines of circumvallation, within which a half-armed American militia held the flower of the British army blockaded; the plough has done, what the English batteries could not do,-has levelled others of them with the earth; and the Men, the great and good men, their warfare is over, and they have gone quietly down to the dust they redeemed from oppression. At the close of a half century, since the declaration of our Independence, we are assembled to commemorate that great and happy event. We come together, not because it needs, but because it deserves these acts of celebration. We do not meet each other, and exchange our felicitations, because we should otherwise fall into forgetfulness of this auspicious era; but because we owe it to our fathers and to our children, to mark its return with grateful festivities. The major part of this assembly is composed of those, who had not yet engaged in the active scenes of life, when the Revolution commenced. We come not to applaud our own work, but to pay a filial tribute to the deeds of our fathers. It was for their children, that the heroes and sages of the Revolution labored and bled. They were too wise not to know, that it was not personally their own cause, in which they were embarked; they felt that they were engaging in an enterprize, which an entire generation must be too short to bring to its mature and perfect issue. The most they could |