nt hand of a sullen king, and set it to
glitter forever upon the brow of a new-born nation. [Applause.]
Auspicious day, which an hundred years ago proclaimed both civil and
religious liberty to all the populations of the earth! To-day we have
set four other stars in our national heaven. [Applause.] Through all the
years we shall go on adding to the glories of the constellation, each
one with a radiance of its own, each one with an orbit of its own, but
all swinging in delightful harmony in that larger orbit within which we
recognize our common country, our Federal Union. [Applause.]

What did Washington do for us? Look around you! I cannot but say, as
that monument in St. Paul's says of the architect of that splendid pile,
Sir Christopher Wren. All of him that could die sleeps under the marble,
but above his mouldering ashes there is this inscription: "Here lies the
body of Sir Christopher Wren, architect of St. Paul's. Reader, would you
see his monument, then look around you." [Applause.] There could be no
higher evidence of the grandeur and greatness, the strength and
character of the man and of his mind, than to point to the works he did.
So we say of Washington. We have had an hundred years of experience in
the form of government that his sword conquered for us, and that his
statesman-like mind fashioned and controlled at the outset. The guidance
he gave us we have never lost; the teachings he inculcated we cherish as
dearly to-day as when they were uttered. Nay! nay! his memory and his
fame grow brighter as the years recede, and as we get away from the
frailties and foibles which attach to the weakness of our common
humanity, even in the person of the strongest. As we get away it is like
moving from some grand mountain peak. As you go away you see its
symmetrical form rise clear in the clouds, with the eternal blue around
the summit, with all its harsh and rugged outlines obliterated by
distance; it is there in its perfect grandeur, in its completeness and
beauty, without any of the weaknesses or foibles which attach to it.

I think there is no better evidence of the character and influence of
Washington upon the American mind than what has transpired during and
since the war. Look, sir, at the South of which you spoke! She was
largely a lethargic people prior to the war. She lived in luxury; she
was in the midst of a condition which yielded to her abundant support,
and eliminated from her life the necessity of har