3.  The war, then, must go on.  We must fight it through.  And if the war must go on, why put off the Declaration of Independence?  That measure will strengthen us.  It will give us character abroad.  Nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects in arms against our sovereign.  Nay, I maintain that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to acknowledge that her whole conduct toward us has been a course of injustice and oppression.  Her pride will be less wounded by submitting to that course of things, which now predestinates our independence, than by yielding the points in controversy to her rebellious subjects.  The former, she would regard as the result of fortune; the latter, she would feel as her own deep disgrace.  Why, then, do we not change this from a civil to a national war?  And since we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory.

4.  If we fail, it can be no worse for us.  But we shall not fail.  The cause will raise up armies; the cause will create navies.  The people—­the people, if we are true to them, will carry us, and will carry themselves, gloriously through this struggle.  I care not how fickle other people have been found.  I know the people of these colonies; and I know that resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts, and can not be eradicated.  Sir, the Declaration of Independence will inspire the people with increased courage.  Instead of a long and bloody war for the restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, for chartered immunities, held under a British king, set before them the glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them anew the spirit of life.

5.  Read this declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it, or perish on the bed of honor.  Publish it from the pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling around it, resolved to stand with it or fall with it.  Send it to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them see it who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support.

6.  Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see—­I see clearly through this day’s business.  You and I, indeed, may rue it.  We may not live to see the time this declaration shall be made good.  We may die; die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold.  Be it so:  be it so.  If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may.  But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country.