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Liberty then is identified with Christianity in the celestial character of its origin: identified with her, in progress and suffering: identified with her destiny and ultimate triumph over every foe. God is the author and defender of both; and as the powers of darkness and hell can never prevail over the one neither shall the powers of despotism ever prevail over the other. Tyrants may combine, holy alliances, so called may be formed to crush the genius and growing power of liberty; but it shall be to them in the end as to those “who plot against the Lord and his anointed.”
Shame and confusion of face here and hereafter will be the portion of each and all who oppose the progress of both.—And look at the progress which Liberty has made in the world—and against all the power of the world arrayed against her; with nothing to sustain her but her purity, her simplicity and her truth! Who could now bring back the darkness, the ignorance, the brutality and oppression of the Feudal times upon Europe? Who would dare now to erect another Bastile in Paris? or who would venture to bring into the English parliament a bill to establish another Star Chamber, and re-enact the sanguinary code of Jeffries, that Draco of British law and justice? And could these United States, whose bright galaxy of Stars, accumulating in numbers and brilliancy, exciting the wonder, awe and fear, jealousy, hate and hope of the world, be persuaded to return to the bosom of Albion’s lion; that by our united energies, and industry we might contribute our part to that lion’s share? It is from such considerations as these that we can judge of the progress that Liberty has already made in our world. And what she has as yet accomplished is but the beginning of her victories and conquests. For until the successful termination of our Revolution and the establishment of our Government Liberty was an exile and a fugitive in the earth; without a local habitation, character or name; yea not so much as a place to rest her head in safety. But that era, in her history; the most eventful and important in the political annals of the world, has changed her position from the defensive to the offensive. She is no longer the wandering, homeless exile—flying from country to country, seeking rest but finding none, of whom Europe was not worthy, nor Asia nor Africa; and being unworthy of her, God provided a place for her abode—a new world, whose soil and atmosphere have never been polluted and soiled by the breath and footsteps of tyranny. And what a spectacle to the nations of the earth does she present? how full of grandeur, beauty and simplicity are all her developments, individual, social and national! how unlike all else the
