Excerpt from An Oration: Delivered Before the Municipal Authorities of the City of Boston, July 4, 1851Three quarters of a century have elapsed, since the Signers of the Declaration, to which you have just listened, more conscious of the solemn responsibility assumed, and the self-evident truths proclaimed, than of the stapen dous results to follow, set their names, where all nations should behold them, and where all time should not efi'ace them. They met that responsibility. They vin dicated and sustained those truths against arbitrary power and popular anarchy. And we, to-day, with their mem ory fresh amongst us, see results, their most sanguine hopes never portrayed, and their loftiest and farthest Vis ions never revealed. The two millions whose voice they, in General Congress assembled, uttered, have become a great people. The thirteen united colonies, they, by that voice, declared were and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States are such, and yet in number and territory the smaller part of that powerful confederacy into which, happily, they have entered, and from which no arts can seduce, no con¿icts of extreme Opinion drive them.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.