quate to all the
exigencies of government, almost without taxation; and peace with all
nations, founded on equal rights and mutual respect.

Europe, within the same period, has been agitated by a mighty
revolution, which, while it has been felt in the individual condition
and happiness of almost every man, has shaken to the centre her
political fabric, and dashed against one another thrones which had stood
tranquil for ages. On this, our continent, our own example has been
followed, and colonies have sprung up to be nations.[5] Unaccustomed
sounds of liberty and free government have reached us from beyond the
track of the sun; and at this moment the dominion of European power in
this continent, from the place where we stand to the south pole, is
annihilated for ever.

In the mean time, both in Europe and America, such has been the general
progress of knowledge, such the improvement in legislation, in commerce,
in the arts, in letters, and, above all, in liberal ideas and the
general spirit of the age, that the whole world seems changed.

Yet, notwithstanding that this is but a faint abstract of the things
which have happened since the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, we are
but fifty years removed from it; and we now stand here to enjoy all the
blessings of our own condition, and to look abroad on the brightened
prospects of the world, while we still have among us some of those who
were active agents in the scenes of 1775, and who are now here, from
every quarter of New England, to visit once more, and under
circumstances so affecting, I had almost said so overwhelming, this
renowned theatre of their courage and patriotism.

VENERABLE MEN! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven
has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this
joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour,
with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the
strife for your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are
indeed over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else
how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed
volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground
strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady
and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning
of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely
and fearlessly bared in an i