upon it in vain! It will stand secure and unharmed, a lamp to our feet and a lantern to our path through all the accidents of life, and will conduct us in safety to the haven where we would be hereafter.

Let us, then, cherish every institution like this, for giving the Gospel to the poor, and for implanting its precious seeds in the youthful mind; and let the best sympathy of our hearts, and the best succor of our hands, be with those who are engaged in so noble a work. For myself, I feel it a privilege to be here this evening. I thank my friends, the Directors of the Association, for the honor they have conferred upon me in calling me to the chair; and I once more express my most earnest wishes for the continued success and prosperity of this Institution.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

A SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL CITY DINNER IN FANEUIL HALL, JULY 4, 1851.

[In reply to the following toast: "The Past Members of Congress” — Boston is justly proud of the list of those of the illustrious dead and of the respected and honored living who have represented her interests in the National Councils - may their enlarged patriotism and devotion to the Constitution be the guiding principles which shall ever animate their successors."]

I COULD not find it in my heart, Mr. Mayor, to decline the kind request of your committee that I would be present here to-day and say a few words in reply to the sentiment which has just been proposed. I am greatly honored by being designated to respond to such a sentiment, and by thus being authorized to appropriate to myself some humble share of the compliment which it contains. It has been my fortune to serve the people of Boston, in the Congress of the United States, for a longer period, I believe, than any one who has represented them since the adoption of the Constitution. I do not forget, however, by whom I have been preceded. I do not forget that upon the list of my respected and illustrious predecessors, to which you have alluded, are contained the names of Otis and Eustis and Ames, among the dead; of Quincy and Gorham and Lawrence and Webster, among the living. As I remember these and other names, I am deeply sensible of my own deficiencies, both comparative and positive. But while I freely confess myself inferior to all who have preceded or followed me, in the ability and success of my services, I do not yield to any of them, either among the dead or the living, in the warmth of my attachment * Hon. John P. Bigelow in the Chair.

to my country and its institutions, in the earnestness of my efforts to advance the interests of my constituents, or in the sincerity of my desire to promote harmony, conciliation, and concord among the whole American people.

And now, fellow-citizens, I know not how to thank you for this cordial and flattering reception. I am here, as you know, with no title to consideration save such as may result from a public career which has recently been brought to a close. After sixteen or seventeen years of official employment, in different branches of the State and National Legislatures, I am once more in the rank and file of private citizenship. My place in the procession and at the table to-day is among the Exes. An ex-member of the General Court, an ex-member of Congress, an ex-Speaker, an ex-Senator,* I am an ex-every thing, excepting only and always that, which, thank Heaven, no party combinations and no personal prejudices can ever prevent me from being, -a Boston boy, a Massachusetts man, a citizen of the United States, an American freeman, — with a heart full of gratitude to those to whose unmerited favor I owe whatever honor I have enjoyed, and full of love and loyalty also to the Constitution and the Union of that native country in whose councils I have so long served.

Let me add that I am content with my position; and it will be owing to no effort, solicitation, or desire of my own, if it shall ever be changed. There is, in my judgment, quite as much of truth, as there is of wit, in the saying of a distinguished Virginia politician on some occasion, that, in the alphabet of a true philosophy, the X's are at least next door to the Y's, (wise.) I will not say that "the post of honor is a private station;" but I will say and you, Mr. Mayor will know how to agree with me— that the post of personal comfort, of true satisfaction, and of inward peace, is not always a public one. Certainly, fellowcitizens, you will all give me credit for realizing at this hour, that if a termination of my Congressional career had secured

*An unexampled Coalition between the Democrats and Free-Soilers, in the Legislature of Massachusetts, by which the State and National Offices at their disposal were made the subject of a formal negotiation and barter, had brought Mr. Winthrop's service in the United States Senate to a close on the 7th of February, 1851. Agreeably to the provisions of the contract, Mr. Rantoul was made Senator for the remnant of the short term, and Mr. Charles Sumner for the long one.

me no other boon, than that of hereafter enjoying a comfortable Fourth of July dinner like this, in old Faneuil Hall, instead of being doomed to endure the almost blistering rays of a Washington sun every alternate year, I might well congratulate myself on the result.

Why, Sir, where should an American desire to be on a Fourth of July but in Faneuil Hall? Where else can he breathe the very natal air of American Independence? Where else can he quench his thirst at the very fountain-head of American liberty? Whatever part Massachusetts may have sustained in the great controversies which have agitated the country in later years, and I am not ready to admit that it has been an unworthy or an inferior one, no one will venture to suggest that she played any thing less than the first part in that great drama, whose opening scenes we are assembled to commemorate. Of how many of the great events of the Revolution was not Massachusetts the stage? How many of them were enacted almost within eye-shot and ear-shot of the spot on which we stand? The heights which overhang us on the right hand and on the left the plains which lie behind them the harbor at our feet -the Hall in which we are assembled · State street - the Old State House the Old South-where else was engendered that noble spirit, that fearless purpose, that unconquerable resolve, of which the Declaration of Independence was, after all, only the mere formal and ceremonious proclamation? We sometimes talk playfully about the walls having ears. O, Sir, if these walls could have had ears three quarters of a century ago, and if they could find a tongue now, what a tale would they not unfold of the true rise and progress of American Liberty!

---

Let me not seem to disparage the particular act which we meet to celebrate, or to be disposed to deck these hallowed columns with laurels stripped from other theatres. There are enough for all. The Declaration itself was a bold and noble act. Honor to the pen which drafted it! Honor to the tongue which advocated it! Honor to the hands which signed it! Honor to the brave hearts and gallant arms which maintained and vindicated it! Honor to the five Massachusetts Delegates

in the Congress of that day, who were second to none in that illustrious body for ability, eloquence and patriotism,— Hancock, under whose sole signature it was originally published, the two Adamses, Elbridge Gerry, and Robert Treat Paine. Honor to them all!

Indeed, the more one reflects on the real character of that act, the more full of noble courage it appears. Remember, Sir, that there was no divided responsibility in that Congress. There were no checks and balances in our confederated system. There was no concurrent vote of a second branch; there was no Executive signature, or Executive veto, to fall back upon. Fiftysix Delegates, chosen, as you yourself have just suggested, long before there was any distinct contemplation of such a course, sitting in a single chamber, with closed doors, in the capital of a colony by no means the most ripe for such a movement, are found, doing what? Taking the tremendous responsibility of adopting a resolution, and promulgating an instrument, which may not only subject their own property to confiscation, and their own necks to the halter, but which must involve their constituents and their country in a war for existence, and of incalculable duration, with the most powerful nation on the face of the earth. There was no example for such a deed. There was no precedent on file for such a declaration. And who will say that, to put one's name to such an instrument, under such circumstances, in the clear, bold, unmistakable characters of John Hancock, was an exhibition of a courage less heroic than that which has rendered many a name immortal on the field of battle?

Still, Sir, the way had been opened for such a proceeding; the popular heart had been prepared for it. As was well said by John Adams at the time, "the question was not whether by a Declaration of Independence we should make ourselves what we are not; but whether we should declare a fact which already exists." And how did that fact exist? How had it been brought about? By what events, but those which had occurred at Concord and Lexington, at Bunker Hill and in Faneuil Hall? By what men, but by our own Otis, and Quincy, and Hancock, and Hawley, and Bowdoin, and Samuel Adams, and John Adams,