ORATION.
Fellow-citizens of the United States:
We are assembled to take the first step towards the fulfilment of a long deferred obligation. In this eighth-and-fortieth year since his death, we have come together to lay the corner-stone of a National Monument to Washington.
Other monuments to this illustrious per.son have long ago been erected. By not a few of the great States of our Union, by not a few of the great cities of our States, the chiseled statue or the lofty column has been set up in his honor. The highest art of the old world—of France, of Italy, and of England, successively—has been put in requisition for the purpose. Houdon for Virginia, Canova for North Carolina, Sir Francis Chantrey for Massachusetts, have severally signalized their genius by portraying and perpetuating the form and features of the Father of his Country.
Nor has the Congress of the Nation altogether failed of its duty in this respect. The massive and majestic figure which presides over the precincts of the Capitol, and which seems almost in the act of challenging: a new
