them; it has had enemies, and conquered them; it has had
detractors, and abashed them all; it has had doubting friends, but it
has cleared all doubts away; and now, to-day, raising its august form
higher than the clouds, twenty millions of people contemplate it with
hallowed love, and the world beholds it, and the consequences which have
followed from it, with profound admiration.

This anniversary animates and gladdens and unites all American hearts.
On other days of the year we may be party men, indulging in
controversies, more or less important to the public good; we may have
likes and dislikes, and we may maintain our political differences, often
with warm, and sometimes with angry feelings. But to-day we are
Americans all; and all nothing but Americans. As the great luminary over
our heads, dissipating mists and fogs, now cheers the whole hemisphere,
so do the associations connected with this day disperse all cloudy and
sullen weather in the minds and hearts of true Americans. Every man's
heart swells within him; every man's port and bearing become somewhat
more proud and lofty, as he remembers that seventy-five years have
rolled away, and that the great inheritance of liberty is still his;
his, undiminished and unimpaired; his in all its original glory; his to
enjoy, his to protect, and his to transmit to future generations.

Fellow-citizens, this inheritance which we enjoy to-day is not only an
inheritance of liberty, but of our own peculiar American liberty.
Liberty has existed in other times, in other countries, and in other
forms. There has been a Grecian liberty, bold and powerful, full of
spirit, eloquence, and fire; a liberty which produced multitudes of
great men, and has transmitted one immortal name, the name of
Demosthenes, to posterity. But still it was a liberty of disconnected
states, sometimes united, indeed, by temporary leagues and
confederacies, but often involved in wars between themselves. The sword
of Sparta turned its sharpest edge against Athens, enslaved her, and
devastated Greece; and, in her turn, Sparta was compelled to bend before
the power of Thebes. And let it ever be remembered, especially let the
truth sink deep into all American minds, that it was the WANT OF UNION
among her several states which finally gave the mastery of all Greece to
Philip of Macedon.

And there has also been a Roman liberty, a proud, ambitious, domineering
spirit, professing free and popular principles in Ro