Fellow-citizens, take courage; be of good cheer.  We shall come to no such ignoble end.  We shall live, and not die.  During the period allotted to our several lives, we shall continue to rejoice in the return of this anniversary.  The ill-omened sounds of fanaticism will be hushed; the ghastly spectres of Secession and Disunion will disappear; and the enemies of united constitutional liberty, if their hatred cannot be appeased, may prepare to have their eyeballs seared as they behold the steady flight of the American eagle, on his burnished wings, for years and years to come.

President Fillmore, it is your singularly good fortune to perform an act such as that which the earliest of your predecessors performed fifty-eight years ago.  You stand where he stood; you lay your hand on the corner-stone of a building designed greatly to extend that whose corner-stone he laid.  Changed, changed is every thing around.  The same sun, indeed, shone upon his head which now shines upon yours.  The same broad river rolled at his feet, and bathes his last resting-place, that now rolls at yours.  But the site of this city was then mainly an open field.  Streets and avenues have since been laid out and completed, squares and public grounds enclosed and ornamented, until the city which bears his name, although comparatively inconsiderable in numbers and wealth, has become quite fit to be the seat of government of a great and united people.

Sir, may the consequences of the duty which you perform so auspiciously to-day, equal those which flowed from his act.  Nor this only; may the principles of your administration, and the wisdom of your political conduct, be such, as that the world of the present day, and all history hereafter, may be at no loss to perceive what example you have made your study.

Fellow-citizens, I now bring this address to a close, by expressing to you, in the words of the great Roman orator, the deepest wish of my heart, and which I know dwells deeply in the hearts of all who hear me:  “Duo modo haec opto; unum, UT MORIENS POPULUM ROMANUM LIBERUM RELINQUAM; hoc mihi majus a diis immortalibus dari nihil potest:  alterum, ut ita cuique eveniat, ut de republica quisque mereatur.”

And now, fellow-citizens, with hearts void of hatred, envy, and malice towards our own countrymen, or any of them, or towards the subjects or citizens of other governments, or towards any member of the great family of man; but exulting, nevertheless, in our own peace, security, and happiness, in the grateful remembrance of the past, and the glorious hopes of the future, let us return to our homes, and with all humility and devotion offer our thanks to the Father of all our mercies, political, social, and religious.

[Footnote 1:  The following motto stands upon the title-page of the original pamphlet edition:—­

“Stet Capitolium
Fulgens;
late nomen in ultimas
Extendat oras.”]