the state of Great Britain.  What will, at that period, be the duty of the colonies?  Will they be still bound to unconditional submission?  Must they always continue an appendage to our government and follow it implicitly through every change that can happen to it?  Wretched condition, indeed, of millions of freemen as good as ourselves!  Will you say that we now govern equitably, and that there is no danger of such revolution?  Would to God that this were true!  But you will not always say the same.  Who shall judge whether we govern equitably or not?  Can you give the colonies any security that such a period will never come?  No.  THE PERIOD, COUNTRYMEN, IS ALREADY COME!  The calamities were at our door.  The rod of oppression was raised over us.  We were roused from our slumbers, and may we never sink into repose until we can convey a clear and undisputed inheritance to our posterity!  This day we are called upon to give a glorious example of what the wisest and best of men were rejoiced to view, only in speculation.  This day presents the world with the most august spectacle that its annals ever unfolded,—­millions of freemen, deliberately and voluntarily forming themselves into a society for their common defense and common happiness.  Immortal spirits of Hampden, Locke, and Sidney, will it not add to your benevolent joys to behold your posterity rising to the dignity of men, and evincing to the world the reality and expediency of your systems, and in the actual enjoyment of that equal liberty, which you were happy, when on earth, in delineating and recommending to mankind?

Other nations have received their laws from conquerors; some are indebted for a constitution to the suffering of their ancestors through revolving centuries.  The people of this country, alone, have formally and deliberately chosen a government for themselves, and with open and uninfluenced consent bound themselves into a social compact.  Here no man proclaims his birth or wealth as a title to honorable distinction, or to sanctify ignorance and vice with the name of hereditary authority.  He who has most zeal and ability to promote public felicity, let him be the servant of the public.  This is the only line of distinction drawn by nature.  Leave the bird of night to the obscurity for which nature intended him, and expect only from the eagle to brush the clouds with his wings and look boldly in the face of the sun.

Some who would persuade us that they have tender feelings for future generations, while they are insensible to the happiness of the present, are perpetually foreboding a train of dissensions under our popular system.  Such men’s reasoning amounts to this:  Give up all that is valuable to Great Britain and then you will have no inducements to quarrel among yourselves; or, suffer yourselves to be chained down by your enemies that you may not be able to fight with your friends.