r public
employments, never rested on either. No sordid motive approached them.
The inheritance which they have left to their children is of their
character and their fame.

Fellow-citizens, I will detain you no longer by this faint and feeble
tribute to the memory of the illustrious dead. Even in other hands,
adequate justice could not be done to them, within the limits of this
occasion. Their highest, their best praise, is your deep conviction of
their merits, your affectionate gratitude for their labors and their
services. It is not my voice, it is this cessation of ordinary pursuits,
this arresting of all attention, these solemn ceremonies, and this
crowded house, which speak their eulogy. Their fame, indeed, is safe.
That is now treasured up beyond the reach of accident. Although no
sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear
record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the
land they honored. Marble columns may, indeed, moulder into dust, time
may erase all impress from the crumbling stone, but their fame remains;
for with AMERICAN LIBERTY it rose, and with AMERICAN LIBERTY ONLY can it
perish. It was the last swelling peal of yonder choir, "THEIR BODIES ARE
BURIED IN PEACE, BUT THEIR NAME LIVETH EVERMORE." I catch that solemn
song, I echo that lofty strain of funeral triumph, "THEIR NAME LIVETH
EVERMORE."

Of the illustrious signers of the Declaration of Independence there now
remains only CHARLES CARROLL. He seems an aged oak, standing alone on
the plain, which time has spared a little longer after all its
contemporaries have been levelled with the dust. Venerable object! we
delight to gather round its trunk, while yet it stands, and to dwell
beneath its shadow. Sole survivor of an assembly of as great men as the
world has witnessed, in a transaction one of the most important that
history records, what thoughts, what interesting reflections, must fill
his elevated and devout soul! If he dwell on the past, how touching its
recollections; if he survey the present, how happy, how joyous, how full
of the fruition of that hope which his ardent patriotism indulged; if he
glance at the future, how does the prospect of his country's advancement
almost bewilder his weakened conception! Fortunate, distinguished
patriot! Interesting relic of the past! Let him know that, while we
honor the dead, we do not forget the living; and that there is not a
heart here which does not fe