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about to level his venerable frame with the dust. But he bade us hope, that "the sound of a nation's joy, rushing from our cities, ringing from our valleys, echoing from our hills, might yet break the silence of his aged ear; that the rising blessings of grateful millions might yet visit, with glad light, his decaying vision." Alas! that vision was then closing for ever. Alas! the silence which was then settling on that aged ear, was an everlasting silence! For, lo! in the very moment of our festivities, his freed spirit ascended to God who gave it! Human aid and human solace terminate at the grave; or we would gladly have borne him upward, on a nation's outspread hands; we would have accompanied him, and with the blessings of millions and the prayers of millions, commended him to the Divine favor.

THE DUTY OF CITIZENS.

And now, fellow-citizens, let us not retire from this occasion, without a deep and solemn conviction of the duties which have devolved upon us. This lovely land, this glorious liberty, these benign institutions, the dear purchase of our fathers, are ours; ours to enjoy, ours to preserve, ours to transmit. Generations past, and generations to come, hold us responsible for the sacred trust. Our fathers, from behind, admonish us, with their anxious paternal voices, posterity calls out to us, from the bosom of the future, the world turns hither its solicitous eye-all, all conjure us to act wisely, and faithfully-in the relation which we sustain. We can never, indeed, pay the debt which is upon us; but by virtue, by morality, by religion, by the cultivation of every good principle and every good habit, we may

hope to enjoy the blessing, through our day, and leave it unimpaired to our children. Let us feel deeply how much, of what we are and of what we possess, we owe to this liberty, and these institutions of government. Nature has, indeed, given us a soil, which yields bounteously to the hand of industry ; the mighty and fruitful ocean is before us, and the skies over our heads shed health and vigor. But what are lands, and seas, and skies, to civilized man, without society, without knowledge, without morals, without religious culture; and how can these be enjoyed, in all their extent, and all their excellence, but under the protection of wise institutions and a free government? Fellow-citizens, there is not one of us, there is not one of us here present, who does not, at this moment, and at every moment, experience, in his own condition, and in the condition of those most near and dear to him, the influence and the benefits of this liberty, and these institutions. Let us then acknowledge the blessing, let us feel it deeply and powerfully, let us cherish a strong affection for it, and resolve to maintain and perpetuate it. The blood of our fathers, let it not have been shed in vain; the great hope of posterity, let it not be blasted.

SITUATION OF AMERICA.

It is not to inflate national vanity, nor to swell a light and empty feeling of self-importance; but it is that we may judge justly of our situation, and of our own duties, that I earnestly urge this consideration of our position. and our character, among the nations of the earth. It cannot be denied, but by those who would dispute against the sun, that with America, and in America, a new era

commences in human affairs. This era is distinguished by free representative governments, by entire religious liberty, by improved systems of national intercourse, by a newly-awakened and an unconquerable spirit of free inquiry, and by a diffusion of knowledge through the community, such as has been before altogether unknown or unheard of. America, America, our country, fellow. citizens, our own dear and native land, is inseparably connected, fast bound up, in fortune and by fate, with these great interests; if they fall, we fall with them; if they stand, it will be because we have upholden them. Let us contemplate, then, this connexion, which binds the prosperity of others to our own; and let us manfully discharge all the duties which it imposes. If we cherish the virtues and the principles of our fathers, Heaven will assist us to carry on the work of human liberty and human happiness. Auspicious omens cheer us. Great examples are before us. Our own firmament now shines brightly upon our path. WASHINGTON is in the clear upper sky. These other stars have now joined the American constellation; they circle round their centre, and the heavens beam with new light. Beneath this illumination, let us walk the course of life, and at its close devoutly commend our beloved country, the common parent of us all, to the Divine benignity.

IMPORTANCE OF JUSTICE.

The respondent has as deep a stake, no doubt, in this trial, as he can well have in any thing which does not affect his life. Regard for reputation, love of honorable character, affection for those who must suffer with him, if he suffers, and who will feel your sentence of convic

tion, if you should pronounce one, fall on their heads, as it falls on his; cannot but excite in his breast an anxiety which nothing could well increase, and nothing but a consciousness of upright intention, could enable him to endure. Yet sir, a few years will carry him far beyond the reach of the consequences of this trial. Those same years will bear away also in their rapid flight, those who prosecute, and those who judge him. But the commu. nity remains. The commonwealth, we trust, will be perpetual. She is yet in her youth, as a free and independent state, and, in analogy to the life of individuals, may be said to be in that period of existence, when principles of action are adopted, and character is formed. The respondent will not be the principal sufferer, if he should here fall a victim to charges of undefined and undefinable offences, to loose notions of constitutional law, or novel rules of evidence. By the necessary retribution of things, the evil of such a course will fall most heavily on the state which should pursue it, by shaking its character for justice, and impairing its principles of constitutional liberty.

EXTERNAL NATURE.

The visible and tangible creation in which we are introduced at our birth, is not in all its parts, fixed and stationary. Motion, or change of place, regular or occasional, belongs to all or most of the things which are around us. Animal life everywhere moves; the earth itself has its motion, and its complexities of motion; the ocean heaves and subsides; rivers run lingering or rushing to the sea; and the air which we breathe moves and acts with mighty power. Motion, thus pertaining to the

physical objects which surround us, is the exhaustless fountain, whence philosophy draws the means, by which, in various degrees, and endless forms, natural agencies and the tendencies of inert matter, are brought to the succor and assistance of human strength. It is the object of mechanical contrivance to modify motion, to produce it in new forms, to direct it to new purposes; to multiply its uses-by means of it to do better, that which human strength could do without its aid-and to perform that, also, which such strength, unassisted by art, could not perform.

MATHEMATICAL SCIENCE.

But, doubtless, the reasoning faculty, the mind, is the leading characteristic attribute of the human race. By the exercise of this, he arrives at the knowledge of the properties of natural bodies. This is science, properly and emphatically so called. It is the science of pure mathematics; and in the high branches of this science, lies the true sublime of human acquisition. If any attainments deserve that epithet, it is the knowledge, which, from the mensuration of the minutest dust of the balance, proceeds on the rising scale of material bodies, every where weighing, every where measuring, every where detecting and explaining the laws of force and motion; penetrating into the secret principles which hold the universe of God together, and balancing world against world, and system against system. When we seek to accompany those, who pursue their studies, at once so high, so vast and so exact; when we arrive at the discoveries of Newton, which pour in day on the works of God, as if a second fiat for light had gone forth from his own mouth; when further, we attempt to follow those,

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