Like the Coliseum and the
Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy
immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them, than were
ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be
the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw,
the edifice of constitutional American liberty.
But let us hope for better things. Let us trust in that gracious Being
who has hitherto held our country as in the hollow of his hand. Let us
trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the people, and to the
efficacy of religious obligation. Let us trust to the influence of
Washington's example. Let us hope that that fear of Heaven which expels
all other fear, and that regard to duty which transcends all other
regard, may influence public men and private citizens, and lead our
country still onward in her happy career. Full of these gratifying
anticipations and hopes, let us look forward to the end of that century
which is now commenced. A hundred years hence, other disciples of
Washington will celebrate his birth, with no less of sincere admiration
than we now commemorate it. When they shall meet, as we now meet, to do
themselves and him that honor, so surely as they shall see the blue
summits of his native mountains rise in the horizon, so surely as they
shall behold the river on whose banks he lived, and on whose banks he
rests, still flowing on toward the sea, so surely may they see, as we
now see, the flag of the Union floating on the top of the Capitol; and
then, as now, may the sun in his course visit no land more free, more
happy, more lovely, than this our own country!
Gentlemen, I propose--"THE MEMORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON.
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