tenance which showed that his whole heart was in the thing,
thus addressed the assembly of his fellow-citizens:--

"Friends and Fellow-citizens: It is nearly a full century since Berkely,
bishop of Cloyne, turning towards this fair land which we now inhabit,
the eyes of a prophet, closed a few lines of poetical inspiration with
this memorable prediction--

"Time's noblest empire is the last :"--

a prediction which, to those of us whose lot has been cast by Divine
Providence in these regions, contains not only a precious promise, but a
solemn injunction of duty, since upon our energies, and upon those of our
posterity, its fulfilment will depend. For with reference to what
principle could it be that Berkely proclaimed this, the last, to be the
noblest empire of time? It was, as he himself declares, on the
transplantation of learning and the arts to America. Of learning and the
arts. The four first acts--the empires of the old world, and of former
ages--the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, the Roman empires--were
empires of conquest, dominions of man over man. The empire which his great
mind, piercing into the darkness of futurity, foretold in America, was the
empire of learning and the arts,--the dominion of man over himself, and
over physical nature--acquired by the inspirations of genius, and the
toils of industry; not watered with the tears of the widow and the orphan;
not cemented in the blood of human victims; founded not in discord, but in
harmony,--of which the only spoils are the imperfections of nature, and
the victory achieved is the improvement of the condition of all. Well may
this be termed nobler than the empire of conquest, in which man subdues
only his fellow-man.

"To the accomplishment of this prophecy, the first necessary step was the
acquisition of the right of self-government, by the people of the British
North American Colonies, achieved by the Declaration of Independence, and
its acknowledgment by the British nation. The second was the union of all
these colonies under one general confederated Government--a task more
arduous than that of the preceding separation, but at last effected by the
present constitution of the United States.

"The third step, more arduous still than either or both the others, was
that which we, fellow-citizens, may now congratulate ourselves, our
country, and the world of man, that it is taken. It is the adaptation of
the powers, physical, moral, and intellectua