the storm of war, a
beacon light, to cheer and guide the country's friends; it flamed, too,
like a meteor, to repel her foes. That name, in the days of peace, was a
loadstone, attracting to itself a whole people's confidence, a whole
people's love, and the whole world's respect. That name, descending with
all time, spreading over the whole earth, and uttered in all the
languages belonging to the tribes and races of men, will for ever be
pronounced with affectionate gratitude by every one in whose breast
there shall arise an aspiration for human rights and human liberty.

We perform this grateful duty, Gentlemen, at the expiration of a hundred
years from his birth, near the place, so cherished and beloved by him,
where his dust now reposes, and in the capital which bears his own
immortal name.

All experience evinces that human sentiments are strongly influenced by
associations. The recurrence of anniversaries, or of longer periods of
time, naturally freshens the recollection, and deepens the impression,
of events with which they are historically connected. Renowned places,
also, have a power to awaken feeling, which all acknowledge. No American
can pass by the fields of Bunker Hill, Monmouth, and Camden, as if they
were ordinary spots on the earth's surface. Whoever visits them feels
the sentiment of love of country kindling anew, as if the spirit that
belonged to the transactions which have rendered these places
distinguished still hovered round, with power to move and excite all who
in future time may approach them.

But neither of these sources of emotion equals the power with which
great moral examples affect the mind. When sublime virtues cease to be
abstractions, when they become embodied in human character, and
exemplified in human conduct, we should be false to our own nature, if
we did not indulge in the spontaneous effusions of our gratitude and our
admiration. A true lover of the virtue of patriotism delights to
contemplate its purest models; and that love of country may be well
suspected which affects to soar so high into the regions of sentiment as
to be lost and absorbed in the abstract feeling, and becomes too
elevated or too refined to glow with fervor in the commendation or the
love of individual benefactors. All this is unnatural. It is as if one
should be so enthusiastic a lover of poetry, as to care nothing for
Homer or Milton; so passionately attached to eloquence as to be
indifferent to Tully a