and commodious distribution of power, which with us were the price of civil wars, and the rewards of the virtues and sufferings of our ancestors, descend to them as a natural inheritance, without toil or pain.

“But must they rest here, as in the utmost effort of human genius?  Can chance and time, the wisdom and the experience of public men, suggest no new remedy aqainst the evils which vices and ambition are perpetually apt to cause?  May they not hope, without presumption, to preserve a greater zeal for piety and public devotion than we have alone?  For sure it can hardly happen to them, as it has to us, that, when religion is best understood and rendered most pure and reasonable, then should be the precise time when many cease to believe and practise it, and all in general become most indifferent to it.

“May they not possibly be more successful than their mother country has been in preserving that reverence and authority which are due to the laws? to those who make, and to those who execute them? May not a method be invented of procuring some tolerable share of the comforts of life to those inferior useful ranks of men to whose industry we are indebted for the whole?  Time and discipline may discover some means to correct the extreme inequalities of condition between the rich and the poor, so dangerous to the innocence and happiness of both. They may fortunately be led by habit and choice to despise that luxury which is considered with us the true enjoyment of wealth.  They may have little relish for that ceaseless hurry of amusements which is pursued in this country without pleasure, exercise, or employment.  And perhaps, after trying some of our follies and caprices, and rejecting the rest, they may be led by reason and experiment to that old simplicity which was first pointed out by nature, and has produced those models which we still admire in arts, eloquence, and manners. The diversity of new scenes and situations, which so many growing states must necessarily pass through, may introduce changes in the fluctuating opinions and manners of men which we can form no conception of; and not only the gracious disposition of Providence, but the visible preparation of causes, seems to indicate strong tendencies towards a general improvement.”

Fellow-citizens, this “gracious disposition of Providence,” and this “visible preparation of causes,” at length brought on the hour for decisive action.  On the 4th of July, 1776, the Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, declared that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES.

This Declaration, made by most patriotic and resolute men, trusting in the justice of their cause and the protection of Heaven, and yet made not without deep solicitude and anxiety, has now stood for seventy-five years, and still stands.  It was sealed in blood.  It has met dangers, and overcome them; it has had enemies, and conquered them; it has had detractors, and abashed them all; it has had doubting friends, but it has cleared all doubts away; and now, to-day, raising its august form higher than the clouds, twenty millions of people contemplate it with hallowed love, and the world beholds it, and the consequences which have followed from it, with profound admiration.