Excerpt from Oration Delivered on the Fourth of July, 1855: At the Capitol, in the Hall of the House of Representatives, in the City of Washington

Fellow-Citizens:

Ours is indeed a glorious heritage!

This is the earliest thought, coming with the dawn to awaken and to fill your hearts and mine at each return of this auspicious day. And with it comes the grateful and the reverent impulse to bless and praise Almighty God for all the precious memories and resplendent hopes that, like a thronging company of angels, hasten, and in revolving years shall ever hasten, to attend the gates of light and usher in this brightest morning in the calendar of time!

Yes! it is a day freighted with the load of ages. It is a day big with the destinies of man. It is a day to which all people, in all time to come, shall ever turn to animate their hopes, to nerve their constancy, invigorate their courage, and confirm their faith, as often as that struggle shall recur which, here begun, shall sooner or later, but still surely and finally extend the blessings of liberty, in some form or other, to every nation and people, and kindred and tongue, even to the utmost limits of the earth.

This must be the work of centuries. But the influences of this day shall pervade them all, and stretch away even to the last syllable of recorded time.

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