ine shall endure! This monument may moulder away; the solid ground it
rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall
not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the
transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim
kindred with thy spirit!

But the scene amidst which we stand does not permit us to confine our
thoughts or our sympathies to those fearless spirits who hazarded or
lost their lives on this consecrated spot. We have the happiness to
rejoice here in the presence of a most worthy representation of the
survivors of the whole Revolutionary army.

VETERANS! you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. You bring
with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown,
Camden, Bennington, and Saratoga. VETERANS OF HALF A CENTURY! when in
your youthful days you put every thing at hazard in your country's
cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your
fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this! At a period
to which you could not reasonably have expected to arrive, at a moment
of national prosperity such as you could never have foreseen, you are
now met here to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the
overflowings of a universal gratitude.

But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform me that
even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending
feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons
of the living, present themselves before you. The scene overwhelms you,
and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your
declining years, and bless them! And when you shall here have exchanged
your embraces, when you shall once more have pressed the hands which
have been so often extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in
the exultation of victory, then look abroad upon this lovely land which
your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is
filled; yea, look abroad upon the whole earth, and see what a name you
have contributed to give to your country, and what a praise you have
added to freedom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which
beam upon your last days from the improved condition of mankind!

The occasion does not require of me any particular account of the battle
of the 17th of June, 1775, nor any detailed narrative of the events
which immediately preceded it. These are