ORATION ON THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF THE Declaration of Independence, DELIVERED IN THE MUSIC HALL, AT THE REQUEST OF BOSTON, 4 JULY, 1876. BY ROBERT C. WINTHROP. BOSTON: PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 1876. E 286 W 19 Re-classed 8-b 020.11. RR ORATION. AGAIN and again, Mr. Mayor and Fellow Citizens, in years gone by, considerations or circumstances of some sort, public or private, I know not what, have prevented my acceptance of most kind and flattering invitations to deliver the Oration in this my native city on the Fourth of July. On one of those occasions, long, long ago, I am said to have playfully replied to the Mayor of that period, that, if I lived to witness this Centennial Anniversary, I would not refuse any service which might be required of me. That pledge has been recalled by others, if not remembered by myself, and by the grace of God I am here to-day to fulfil it. I have come at last, in obedience to your call, to add my name to the distinguished roll of those who have discharged this service in unbroken succession since the year 1783, when the date of a glorious act of patriots was substituted for that of a dastardly deed of hirelings, the 4th of July for the 5th of March, as a day of annual celebration by the people of Boston. In rising to redeem the promise thus inconsiderately given, I may be pardoned for not forgetting, at the outset, who presided over the Executive Council of Massachusetts when the Declaration, which has just been read, was first formally and solemnly proclaimed to the people, from the balcony of yonder Old State House, on the 18th of July, 1776;* and whose privilege it was, * James Bowdoin. amid the shoutings of the assembled multitude, the ringing of the bells, the salutes of the surrounding forts, and the firing of thirteen volleys from thirteen successive divisions of the Continental regiments, drawn up "in correspondence with the number of the American States United," to invoke "Stability and Perpetuity to American Independence! God save our American States!" That invocation was not in vain. That wish, that prayer, has been graciously granted. We are here this day to thank God for it. We do thank God for it with all our hearts, and ascribe to Him all the glory. And it would be unnatural if I did not feel a more than common satisfaction, that the privilege of giving expression to your emotions of joy and gratitude, at this hour, should have been assigned to the oldest living descendant of him by whom that invocation was uttered, and that prayer breathed up to Heaven. And if, indeed, in addition to this, as you, Mr. Mayor, so kindly urged in originally inviting me, the name I bear may serve in any sort as a link between the earliest settlement of New England, two centuries and a half ago, and the grand culmination of that settlement in this Centennial Epoch of American Independence, all the less may I be at liberty to express any thing of the compunction or regret, which I cannot but sincerely feel, that so responsible and difficult a task had not been imposed upon some more sufficient, or certainly upon some younger, man. Yet what can I say? What can any one say, here or elsewhere, to-day, which shall either satisfy the expectations of others, or meet his own sense of the demands of such an occasion? For myself, certainly, the longer I have contemplated it, the more deeply I have reflected on it, so much the more hopeless I have become of finding myself able to give any adequate expression to its full significance, its real sublimity and grandeur. A hundred-fold more than when John Adams wrote to his wife it would be so for ever, it is an occasion for "shows, games, sports; guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other." Ovations, rather than orations, are the order of such a day as this. Emotions like those |