receive, as it has heretofore received, the fostering care of Congress, and should be regarded as the permanent seat of the national government?  Here, too, a citizen of the great republic of letters,[2] a republic which knows not the metes and bounds of political geography, has prophetically indicated his conviction that America is to exercise a wide and powerful influence in the intellectual world, by founding in this city, as a commanding position in the field of science and literature, and placing under the guardianship of the government, an institution “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.”

With each succeeding year new interest is added to the spot; it becomes connected with all the historical associations of our country, with her statesmen and her orators, and, alas! its cemetery is annually enriched by the ashes of her chosen sons.

Before us is the broad and beautiful river, separating two of the original thirteen States, which a late President, a man of determined purpose and inflexible will, but patriotic heart, desired to span with arches of ever-enduring granite, symbolical of the firmly cemented union of the North and the South.  That President was General Jackson.

On its banks repose the ashes of the Father of his Country, and at our side, by a singular felicity of position, overlooking the city which he designed, and which bears his name, rises to his memory the marble column, sublime in its simple grandeur, and fitly intended to reach a loftier height than any similar structure on the surface of the whole earth.

Let the votive offerings of his grateful countrymen be freely contributed to carry this monument higher and still higher.  May I say, as on another occasion, “Let it rise; let it rise till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit!”

Fellow-citizens, what contemplations are awakened in our minds as we assemble here to re-enact a scene like that performed by Washington!  Methinks I see his venerable form now before me, as presented in the glorious statue by Houdon, now in the Capitol of Virginia.  He is dignified and grave; but concern and anxiety seem to soften the lineaments of his countenance.  The government over which he presides is yet in the crisis of experiment.  Not free from troubles at home, he sees the world in commotion and in arms all around him.  He sees that imposing foreign powers are half disposed to try the strength of the recently established American government.  We perceive that mighty thoughts, mingled with fears as well as with hopes, are struggling within him.  He heads a short procession over these then naked fields; he crosses yonder stream on a fallen tree; he ascends to the top of this eminence, whose original oaks of the forest stand as thick around him as if the spot had been devoted to Druidical worship, and here he performs the appointed duty of the day.