s of Monroe County, presented their thanks for his noble
exertions in the Legislature, in favor of the Act by which thousands were
made free men.

They were received by that worthy gentleman with grateful and pleasing
assurances of his continued labor in behalf of freedom.

Now I will lay before the reader my address to the audience on that
eventful day.

CHAPTER XVII.

ORATION--TERMINATION OF SLAVERY.

The age in which we live is characterised in no ordinary degree, by a
certain boldness and rapidity in the march of intellectual and political
improvements. Inventions the most surprising; revolutions the most
extraordinary, are springing forth, and passing in quick succession before
us,--all tending most clearly to the advancement of mankind towards that
state of earthly perfection and happiness, from which they are yet so far
distant, but of which their nature and that of the world they inhabit,
are most certainly capable. It is at all times pleasing and instructive
to look backward by the light of history, and forward by the light of
analogical reasoning, to behold the gradual advancement of man from
barbarism to civilization, from civilization toward the higher perfections
of his nature; and to hope--nay, confidently believe, that the time is not
far distant when liberty and equal rights being everywhere established,
morality and the religion of the gospel everywhere diffused,--man shall
no longer lift his hand for the oppression of his fellow man; but all,
mutually assisting and assisted, shall move onward throughout the journey
of human life, like the peaceful caravan across the burning sands of
Arabia. And never, on this glorious anniversary, so often and so
deservedly celebrated by millions of free men, but which we are to-day for
the first time called to celebrate--never before, has the eye been able to
survey the past with so much satisfaction, or the future with hopes and
expectations so brilliant and so flattering; it is to us a day of two-fold
joy. We are men, though the strong hand of prejudice and oppression is
upon us; we can, and we will rejoice in the advancement of the rapidly
increasing happiness of mankind, and especially of our own race. We can,
and we will rejoice in the growing power and glory of the country we
inhabit. Although Almighty God has not permitted us to remain in the land
of our forefathers and our own, the glories of national independence, and
the sweets of civil and religi