States. I would think of our country, to-day and always, as one in the glories of the past, one in the grandeur of the present, and one, undivided and indivisible, in the destinies of the future. But at a moment when there seems to be a willingness in some quarters to disparage our ancient Commonwealth, and almost to rule her out from the catalogue of patriot States, I have not been unwilling to revive some recollections of our local history, and of the part which she has played in other days. I could hardly help feeling that, if we were to hold our peace, the very stones would cry out. Sir, in all that relates to Liberty and Union, Massachusetts, I am persuaded, is to-day just what she was seventy-five years ago. There is no variableness or shadow of turning in her devotion to the great principles of her revolutionary fathers, nor will she ever, as I believe, be found wanting to any just obligation to her sister States.

Mr. Mayor, the act of the 4th of July, 1776, was an act of revolution. It was an act of organized and systematic resistance to an oppressive and tyrannical government. It was a solemn and stern appeal from the decrees of a foreign despot, to that great original right of self-preservation and self-government which the Declaration so nobly promulgates. Thanks to the courage of our fathers, the appeal was successful, and the yoke of colonial bondage was forever thrown off.

But another and more difficult task was still to be performed by them, without which all their previous toils and trials would have been worse than useless. The work of overthrow, separation, independence, completed, the greater labor of building up a system of government for themselves remained, a system which should render revolutions forever unnecessary, by establishing law and order on the basis of the popular will constitutionally expressed. That labor, also, was performed. The Constitution was framed, adopted, and organized, and we and our fathers have lived under it for a little more than sixty-two years. Yes, fellow-citizens, we have reached a marked epoch in the history of our country. You have been reminded that it is just three quarters of a century since our independence was declared. But, if I mistake not, something of a mysterious significance has been attached to the precise age which our Constitution has

now reached.

A man in his sixty-third year is said to be at a critical period in his life. It is called his "grand climacteric." If he safely passes over that period, he looks for a long continuance of life and health. And our Federal Constitution has at length reached its grand climacteric. And though differences of opinion may exist among us as to the exact amount of danger in which we have been involved, and as to the precise manner in which our controversies have been adjusted, nobody will deny that circumstances have occurred to mark the period through which we are passing, as a more than commonly critical period in our political existence. But, thanks to that Almighty Being who shapes our ends and controls our destinies, the shades which seemed gathering over our pathway are already scattered, the bow is clearly visible upon the clouds, and the sky above us is beginning to be once more radiant with the healing beams of a restored national concord!

Let us not indulge ourselves, however, in any hopes or in any fears, founded only on a superstitious tradition. Human life may have its mysterious periods of safety and of danger, and they may be altogether beyond our control. We know that it has one period, which no prudence can avert and no foresight postpone. We "cannot stay mortality's strong hand." The beloved Chief Magistrate who, this day last year, was engaged in adding another stone to the monument of his illustrious exemplar, was himself the subject of a monument before the expiration of a single week. And the patriotic hands and eloquent voices which are assisting this day in laying the corner-stone of a new Capitol, may have become motionless and mute before that structure shall have reached its completion. One after another, we must all meet "the inexorable hour." But not so with our country. There is no natural term to the life of a nation. It is for the people to say, as they rise up, generation after generation, to the enjoyment of the Institutions which their fathers have founded, whether, by God's blessing, they will transmit them unimpaired to their children.

It is for us to say, whether we will be true to those great elements of Free Government, to those noble principles of Liberty and Law, and to that blessed compact of Union, which our fathers have enshrined in the Constitution of the United States.

If we are but faithful to that great bond and bulwark of our Union, the Constitution, critical periods may come and gothere may be grand climacterics and petty crises-stars may rise and set the great and the good may fall on our right hand and our left- but the Country, the Country, will survive them all, will survive us all, and will stand before the world an imperishable monument of the patriotism of the sons, as well as of the wisdom and virtue of their sires.

Let me conclude, then, by offering, as an expression of my best wishes for my country, on its seventy-fifth birthday, the following sentiment:

"Permanent Peace with other countries; fixed boundaries for our own country; perpetuity to the Union of the States; and a faithful fulfilment of the Constitutional Compact by all who are parties to it."

RAILROAD JUBILEE.

A SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE PAVILION ON BOSTON COMMON AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE COMPLETION OF THE CANADA AND BOSTON RAILROADS, SEPTEMBER 19, 1851.

[In reply to a complimentary sentiment proposed by the Honorable John P. Bigelow, Mayor of the City.]

I AM deeply sensible, Mr. Mayor, that the honors and compliments of this occasion belong to others. They belong, in the first place, as my friend, Mr. Everett, has just suggested, to the distinguished and illustrious strangers of our own country and of other countries, who have adorned our festival with their presence. And they belong, in the next place, to those of our own fellow-citizens, of whom I see not a few around me, to whose far-seeing sagacity and persevering efforts and personal labors we owe the great works whose completion we celebrate. For myself, Sir, I have no pretension of either sort; but I am all the more grateful for the opportunity you have afforded me of saying a few words, and for the kind and cordial manner in which you have presented me to this assembly. Most heartily do I wish that I could say any thing worthy of such a scene. Most heartily do I wish that I could find expressions and illustrations in any degree commensurate to the vast and varied theme which such an occasion suggests. And still more do I wish that I could find a voice capable of conveying, even to one half of this crowded and countless audience, such poor phrases as I may be able to command. But voice, language, and imagination seem to falter and fail alike, in any attempt to do justice to circumstances like the present.

Mr. Mayor, the very dates which you have selected for your three days' jubilee, would furnish material for a discourse which would occupy far more than all the daylight which is left us. The 17th, 18th, and 19th days of September! How many of the most memorable events in our local, colonial, and national history, are included in this brief period!

It was on one of these days, in the year 1620, that the Pilgrim Fathers of New England took their final departure from the mother country, their last and tearful leave of old England, and entered on that perilous ocean voyage, of more than three months' duration, which terminated at Plymouth Rock!

It was on one of these days, ten years later, in 1630, that the Puritan Fathers of Massachusetts, with one of whom you have done me the honor to associate me, first gave the name of Boston to the few tents and huts and log cabins which then made up our embryo city!

It was on one of these same days, too, in 1787, that the Patriot Fathers of America set their hands and seals, at Philadel phia, to that matchless instrument of government—the Consti tution of the United States which has bound this nation together for better or worse-let me not say for better or worse, but for the best and highest interests of our country and of mankind-in one inseparable and ever-blessed Union forever!

Nor, Mr. Mayor, is this eventful period in the calendar without associations and reminiscences of pride and glory, for our brethren whom we have welcomed from over the borders. It was, if I mistake not, on one of these same three September days, in the year 1759, that the proud fortress of Quebec was finally surrendered to the British forces,-surrendered as the result of that memorable conflict on the heights of Abraham, five or six days before, in which the gallant Wolfe had expired in the blaze of his fame, happy (as he said) to have seen his country's arms victorious, and in which the not less gallant Montcalm had lain down in the dust beside him, happy, too, (as he also said,) not to have seen the downfall of this last strong-hold of the French dominion on the North American continent.

Nor is this a reminiscence, Sir, in which we of New England,