34
rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts."
The Union, the Union in any event, was thus the sentiment of Washington. The Union, the Union in any event, let it be our sentiment this day!
Yes, to-day, fellow-citizens, at the very moment when the extension of our boundaries and the multiplication of our territories are producing, directly, and indirectly, among the different members of our political system, so many marked and mourned centrifugal tendencies, let us seize this occasion to renew to each other our vows of allegiance and devotion to the American Union, and let us recognize in our common title to the name and the fame of Washington, and in our common veneration for his example and his advice, the all-sufficient centripetal power, which shall hold the thick clustering stars of our confederacy in one glorious constellation forever! Let the column which we are about to construct, be at once a pledge and an emblem of perpetual union! Let the foundations be laid, let the superstructure be built up and cemented, let each stone be raised and riveted, in a spirit of national brotherhood! And may the earliest ray of the risin": sun—till that sun shall set to rise no more—draw forth from it daily, as from the fabled statue of antiquity, a strain of national harmony, which shall strike a responsive chord in every heart throughout the Republic!
Proceed, then, fellow-citizens, with the work for which you have assembled! Lay the corner-stone of a monument which shall adequately bespeak the gratitude of the
