ations to
the same Almighty Power that He would look down with compassion on our
infirmities; that He would pardon our manifold transgressions and
awaken and strengthen in all the wholesome purposes of repentance and
amendment; that in this season of trial and calamity He would preside in
a particular manner over our public councils and inspire all citizens
with a love of their country and with those fraternal affections and
that mutual confidence which have so happy a tendency to make us safe
at home and respected abroad; and that as He was graciously pleased
heretofore to smile on our struggles against the attempts of the
Government of the Empire of which these States then made a part to wrest
from them the rights and privileges to which they were entitled in
common with every other part and to raise them to the station of an
independent and sovereign people, so He would now be pleased in like
manner to bestow His blessing on our arms in resisting the hostile and
persevering efforts of the same power to degrade us on the ocean, the
common inheritance of all, from rights and immunities belonging and
essential to the American people as a coequal member of the great
community of independent nations; and that, inspiring our enemies
with moderation, with justice, and with that spirit of reasonable
accommodation which our country has continued to manifest, we may be
enabled to beat our swords into plowshares and to enjoy in peace every
man the fruits of his honest industry and the rewards of his lawful
enterprise.

If the public homage of a people can ever be worthy the favorable regard
of the Holy and Omniscient Being to whom it is addressed, it must be
that in which those who join in it are guided only by their free choice,
by the impulse of their hearts and the dictates of their consciences;
and such a spectacle must be interesting to all Christian nations as
proving that religion, that gift of Heaven for the good of man, freed
from all coercive edicts, from that unhallowed connection with the
powers of this world which corrupts religion into an instrument or an
usurper of the policy of the state, and making no appeal but to reason,
to the heart, and to the conscience, can spread its benign influence
everywhere and can attract to the divine altar those freewill offerings
of humble supplication, thanksgiving, and praise which alone can be
acceptable to Him whom no hypocrisy can deceive and no forced sacrifices
propitiate