Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from An Oration, Delivered Before the Honorable the Corporation and the Military and Civic Societies of the City of Albany, on the Fourth of July, 1835, Vol. 7
The event which we have now met to commem orate is Without a parallel. It was not the obtain ing of a charter - a reluctant grant or concession of rights wrung from the hand of a master it was not the sudden relaxation of the iron grasp of 0p pression it was not the receiving of a boon dropt from any man's favor it was not the repeal of an obnoxious statute; it was not the plunge of the steel into the heart of the betrayer, or the fall of the bolt of vengeance on the head of the spoiler it was not the decapitation or the expulsion of one tyrant that room might be made for another or for many tyrants; and finally, it was not the violent casting off of a few burthens of a bad system which had become absolutely intolerable, with intent to keep that system with its remaining evils and make them perpetual. There was a declaration of In dependence - the severance of a mighty empire the birth of a new member in the family of nations. And this was very much - but had this been all if this new nation had been to take its place be side the others without any radical change in the system of government - in short, if nothing had been done but the renouncing of allegiance to one set of rulers and the swearing of allegiance to another - quite sure I am that I should not be stand ing here to-day to offer to you my congratulations on the events of the fourth of July 1776. No, my friends - if there was on that day a public declar ation that the people of these states, in then po litica capacity, were and of rlght ought to be iadependent of the crown and authority of Great Britain, there was also the more important declar ation that they were and of right ought to be free. If it was then announced that the form of govern ment under which they had lived had become des tructive of the proper ends of government, an in tention was at the same time intimated to institute a new government, with its powers organized in such a form as should seem to them most likely to effect their safety and happiness. If their purpose was then announced of assuming a separate and equal station amonglthe nations of the earth, they did at the same time announce to the world, as the very point from 'which the frame of their govern ment should take its rise, a new principle, which, at least for centuries, had not been recognized even as an admitted truth, and which had never been regarded as an indispensable element in the structure of a state - That principle was that all men are created equal.
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