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Fourth Of July At The Asylum

Creator: n/a
Date: July 1852
Publication: The Opal
Source: New York State Library

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Does the heart Beat quicker that there are Thirty-one States teeming with industry and independent circumstances?

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Twenty millions of people; pursuing in brotherly regard their varied engagements, cultivating religion, the arts and sciences, and all along the water courses planting the standards of freemen, in the institutions which have arisen as if by magic in the far distant regions.

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Does it thrill the heart with gratitude to God that amid the dreadful chapters of an ever varying world, there is a bright page in American History, a radiant light illuminating the path of society, and like the lamps in darkness to a traveller keep their effulgence a little before him, to arouse a care of that dark future of which all may dread.

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Does sorrow melt the heart as the heart discovers its long catalogue of woes. It. may. But grief has its luxury, and learns that in misfortunes's school were drilled the sires who founded this government and reared these tabernacles, holy to freedom, the very sight of which is eye salve to the oppressed and blinded European.

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"Joyfully celebrate the Fourth of July."' exclaims the illustrious Mr. John Adams, "by bonfires, by ringing of bells, by huzzas, and by every demonstration that a triumphant people can command."

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Mr. Governeur Morris, once exclaimed in a moment of depression, as addressed to such men as Mr. Adams, and his compeers: "Happy! thrice happy illustrious chieftains, that ye died in the bright day of your national glory." Ah! if he had lived until now, if the good patriots and statesmen who founded the government could now survey its conditions and prospects, witness its ships bearing its flag to every clime, behold her citizens, in every region of the earth, with their characteristic promptness, sagacity and adventure, advancing their own and the general weal, and one at least in the metropolis of the northern country, by his own wealth contributing to the hospitable enjoyment of life, and successfully competing with the proudest capitalists of that seat of riches and science.

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Our fathers would rejoice that although there may have been unfavorable circumstances under whose aspect our public men may have been or are viewed, yet take them for all in all, who have past away with the colonial revolution, and we may never see their like again.

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Their incorruptible virtue, their indomitable courage, their tender humanity, their expensive benevolence and patriotism, their heart-rending sufferings, their intelligence and wisdom formed a character that like Edystone Light House on a Solitary Rock, against which the Ocean dashes its waves, and reflects its constant and unflickering light amid the storm and calm. And do we rejoice, that the Puritans with their heroic virtues, the Hugenots with their hallowed chivalry, founded this nation? That over these boundaries and extent the human mind ranges with wonder and delight; that the light of Savage Barbarity has been extinguished, and that the sweet, the alluring ray of virtuous Liberty illuminates the homes of independence? That away over the hills and mountains, where the wild deer and animals were the chase of the Indian, and the war-whoop the sweetest music even of this beautiful valley, there are now the matchless glories of unexampled progress, the luxuries of an independence derived from the stern impulse of the unconquered and inconquerable virtues of heroism and trust.

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Wisdom did not die with our fathers, if it should perchance with their children, and the improvements we behold, the wants and fields, the cottages and palaces of America are only the inevitable consequence of their descent.

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Does this generation exult in their adventure, and laugh at the prudeness of the times that tried men's souls? Their exultation is indeed changed into lamentation, that the power and influence of their exertions comes looming on the astonished sight of their wondrous children, in these beautiful institutions, where polished friends and dear relations mingle into bliss, and around whose sanctity braveness waves its stars and stripes in token of the sure inheritance, and of the safety with which they are founded and exist.

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The tall oaks that have grown from acorns our fathers planted, will always be a standing reproof to the versatility of the seasons, and a beacon against the superstitious bigotry and horrid delusion on which ancient republics have stumbled.

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The truest glory of this republic is not in its vastness, but in the heraldry of the people's inheritance. I need not tell you what that is. Ye all do know, and in some degree appreciate. In the alacrity and zeal with which it rears its altars and firesides, and perpetuates, in all the germs of worth transmitted from the nurseries of Plymouth and Yorktown.

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When this country was discovered by Columbus, there was a set of barbarians who had their own forms, religion and customs. With a wonderful extent of territory, all the romance of the forest was exhibited, and would have doubtless remained "about the same," had not there appeared another band of Eastern Magii to witness the birth of freedom on this continent, and which, from its swaddling clothes, was committed to the high impulse of angelic virtues, that have ripened into maturity, and have with some degree of imperfection been transmitted through countless channels of art and knowledge.

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