Oration on American Independence

IN performing an office so honourable and pleasing as that of addressing this respectable audience, on an occasion so happy, the Speaker's heart must be cold indeed not to be animated—but it must be a bold one not to palpitate with the tremblings of respect.

IT is presumed that no parade of apology will be necessary to secure the candour and indulgence of the assembly: However capable that may be of the severity of criticism, and however his weakness and inexperience may open a field for its exercise; he flatters himself the sentiments naturally inspired by the occasion will alone prove his sufficient protection and security.

ON the memorable day of which this is the twentieth anniversary, the name of America was enrolled on the list of empires; a day, the remembrance of which must ever dwell sweetly on the minds of freemen, as having emancipated a numerous and a virtuous people from a foreign yoke of colonial subjection, and raised them to the blessed enjoyment of liberty, of internal sovereignty, and independence. To commemorate that important event are we now assembled; and to that end I have the honour to stand in this place. I know not how better to recommend myself to your candid attention and sympathy, than by offering a few simple reflections upon the happiness and respectability of the American Empire, considered as well in a natural, social, and domestic view, as on a national scale; and the importance to the cause and interest of republican systems, and political liberty p. 6in general, which is probably attached to the successful support, and final establishment, or the failure and dereliction of the Constitution of the United States.

IT is happy for the Speaker, inexperienced as he is in the employment, that the task to which he is called, and the topic which he is at liberty to assume, preclude the necessity of argumentative persuasion, foreign illustration, or scientific research. As well might we resort to the problems of Euclid, to demonstrate that the radii of a circle are in every part equal, as, in speaking of the felicity of our country, to offer a syllogism. Like the light of Heaven, it bursts irresistably upon the senses; we meet an attesting witness at every step, and a shining illustration in almost every object around us. It is a theme which demands so little from the invention and ingenuity of the Speaker, that the school-boy who lashes his top in the street, might be eloquent upon it; and the lisping infant venture to declaim. It is a theme which requires but to be mentioned to interest the hearer; and on which, so familiar are the subjects of its effects, suggestion is argument, and the pointing of a finger, demonstration.

p. 6WHILE we leave to the legislator and the statesman to trace the annals of past ages, to review the once great, flourishing and happy—but now long lost and extinct, republics of Greece and Rome; to compare former systems with our own, and availing themselves of the event of past experiments, to point out those measures the pursuit of which would lead us to a similar fate, and to deduce lessons of wisdom and policy calculated to guide us in the paths of happiness and glory—it is ours, my friends, to reflect—and never should the reflection be long absent from the minds of any of us—what a glorious and all important experiment now rests its issue on the American character p. 7—an experiment which, whatever be the specific systems of policy which we adopt, must inevitably derive the fairest portion of its success from the existence and exercise of those virtues which form the individual character, and which are equally essential to the christian and the man, as to the citizen.

TO the extent which happiness can be constituted and insured by the provisions of nature, perhaps no country on the face of the earth is happier, or under superior obligations of gratitude in that respect. Not that the gales are loaded with perfume from our aromatic groves, as the Asiatic can boast. Not that our gardens and our fields are crowned with the luscious fragrance of the orange, the burgamot, the pine-apple, and the grape, with all the luxuriance of an Italian vale. Not that our hills and our streams embosom treasures of silver, gold and gems, like the mountains of Potosi and Chili, the rivers of Africa, and the mines of Golconda. If blessings like these are not the boast, so are they neither, I trust, the envy of Americans. None of the laws of nature seem to be more certain and invariable in their operation, than that which limits happiness to exertion, and renders it incompatible with habits of inertion and torpitude. With an oeconomy which we see imitated in the revenue policy of some wise nations, she seems to have ordained that it shall never be imported in a finished state, but that man himself shall contribute to the production of the happiness which he feels.

p. 7LET Europe exult in her luxuries and her pageants, Asia in her spices and her gems, and Africa in her golden sands: In a happy retirement from them all, from the corruptions, the follies, and the tumults of one, and the vices, the ignorance, and barbarities of the others, America, collected within herself, sits smiling in the bosom of peace, of security. Amply possessed of the bullion, the unwrought p. 8materials of wealth and felicity, and conscious of the means, which as amply reside within herself, of coining and manufacturing them, she covets not the enjoyment of their luxuries, at the expence of participating their vices and their miseries.

OURS are the rational, sentimental, and manly enjoyments which result from the union of natural advantages with temperance, industry and oeconomy. …