In closing this communication I trust that it will not be deemed
inappropriate to the occasion and purposes upon which we are here
assembled to indulge a momentary retrospect, combining in a single
glance the period of our origin as a national confederation with that of
our present existence, at the precise interval of half a century from
each other. Since your last meeting at this place the fiftieth
anniversary of the day when our independence was declared has been
celebrated throughout our land, and on that day, while every heart was
bounding with joy and every voice was tuned to gratulation, amid the
blessings of freedom and independence which the sires of a former age
had handed down to their children, two of the principal actors in that
solemn scene--the hand that penned the ever-memorable Declaration and
the voice that sustained it in debate--were by one summons, at the
distance of 700 miles from each other, called before the Judge of All to
account for their deeds done upon earth. They departed cheered by the
benedictions of their country, to whom they left the inheritance of
their fame and the memory of their bright example.
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