Excerpt from Washington National Monument: Shall the Unfinished Obelisk Stand a Monument of National Disgrace and National Dishonor? Speeches in the House of Representatives, June 4, 1874

Mr. Speaker: Seventy-four years ago, on the 23d of last December, the Congress of the United States, in response to a universal fe'el ing throughout the nation, resolved to erect a marble monument at the capital, so designed as to commemorate the great events of the military and political life Of George Washington.

The whole people were in mourning for the loss Of the man who by common consent was regarded as the Father of his Country the man of whom it was said, without exciting the envy of a living soul, that he was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.

When Congress resolved to commemorate the great events of this man's life, they imposed a solemn as well as pleasing duty upon all who were to come after them until that duty Should be performed. At this distance of time, looking back along the path of our history, and remembering the vicissitudes through which efforts to carry out that pledge have passed, and turning my face toward that unfinished column, standing with bowed head upon the banks Of the Potomac.

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