ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
Mr. Adams:
I have been deputed by my fellow-citizens, of all parties, to bid you a hearty welcome to this city. I have been directed, Sir, to tender to you the hospitalities of the people, and of the corporate authorities of this, and of our young, but flourishing, sister of Allegheny.
We have not strewed flowers in your path, nor erected triumphal arches at your approach, but greet you with the homage of grateful hearts, as evinced in this spontaneous outpouring of the people. Here, Sir, is the token of that universal regard in which you are held by the free citizens of this great country. And here, Sir, you have the reward for a long life of meritorious public service.
What can be more endearing to the heart of the patriot, than this exhibition of public sentiment; than this manifestation of love for your person, and admiration for your exalted talents and virtues. Like the son of Marcus Cato, you have been a foe to tyrants, and your country's friend, and that country now tenders to you the tribute of her affection and gratitude.
You seem, Sir, "like the aged oak, standing alone on the plain, which time has spared a little longer, after all its cotemporaries have been levelled with the dust," but the people delight to gather round the venerable trunk, and dwell beneath the shadow of its yet green foliage.
Associated as you have been with the Father of his Country, partaking largely of his confidence, and deeply imbued with the lofty patriotism of his character, it must be gratifying to you, to visit this, the theatre of his earliest achievements.
Here, standing on the portals of the Mississippi valley, his prophetic eye reaching far into futurity, he saw the materials for that great empire, with its teeming millions, that now revere and venerate his name. Here it was that Providence thrice spared his invaluable life. Once, on the Venango path, when the rifle of the warrior flashed in the pan. Again, when his frail raft gave way, and he was precipitated amid ice and snow, and the raging of the elements, into the rapid waters of the Allegheny. And again, on the shores of the Monongahela, when Braddock, and Halket, and Peyronney fell, by the deadly aim of the French and Indians. Two horses shot under him, his clothes perforated with bullets, himself a bright and shining mark, yet the leaden messengers were turned aside by an invisible Hand, and he was saved to lead the armies of his country to victory, and to lay deep that precious corner-stone of civil polity, that has no parallel in the history of the world.
Here it was that in the wigwams, and partaking of the hospitality of King Shingiss and Queen Allaquippa, his heart imbibed that warm and active benevolence for the sons of the forest, that was so conspicuous in his subsequent administration of the government.
Here it was that the influence of his great name suppressed an insurrection that threatened to sap the foundation of our beautiful political edifice. And here, Sir, he has a monument in the affection of his countrymen more durable than brass or marble, and which will remain steadfast, as long as the rippling current of the Ohio flows on to the bosom of the Father of waters.
In 1798, the first armed vessel that ever floated on the western waters was constructed here under the direction of a Revolutionary officer. She was a row-galley, mounting a solitary gun, and was intended to protect our infant trade with that splendid domain afterwards acquired to the Union by the wisdom and foresight of your illustrious friend and cotemporary, Mr. Jefferson.
The name of that vessel was the John Adams, And, if tradition is to be credited, after performing duty here, she hoisted sails, entered the peaceful pursuits of commerce, crossed the Atlantic, passed the straits of Gibraltar, wended her way up the Mediterranean, threaded the Archipelago, and penetrated to the Dardanelles on the borders of Asia Minor; thus carrying on her prow into the very bosom of a despotic country, the name of one of the honored actors in the great struggle for Republican liberty.
Look at the contrast now! Instead of the barge, and the row-galley, our skilful mechanics in 1843 completed, on the very bastions of old Fort Duquesne, an iron ship of war that is to carry on the Northern Lakes the stars and stripes of our beloved country—and a frigate is now in progress of construction, which with her "iron sides," is destined to defend the honor of the American name "in every sea under the whole heavens."
When your venerated Sire, with burning zeal, proclaimed independence now, independence forever; when, with heroic and inflexible resolution, he signed his name to the great charter of our liberty, the place on which you now stand was a barren and unproductive forest. Now,
"As the swollen column of ascending smoke,"
so swells her grandeur. From a thousand chimneys are emitted the living evidences of her prosperity. The flaming fire, the busy hammer, the revolving roller, all give daily, hourly proof of her rapid advancement. Here the rough misshapen elements of nature are formed and moulded to suit the purposes of man. Here machines to mitigate the toil of the laborer, and to facilitate intercourse between the States, are made with a skill unsurpassed even by the old world. Here the anchor is forged to give security and protection to the weather-beaten mariner. Here the shovel and the mattock, the plough and the harrow, go forth to ease the labors of the husbandman. And here the naked are clothed and the hungry fed, by the evolution of machinery "and the potent agency of steam."
To what are we indebted for all these blessings? Since the war of the Revolution, to that wise TARIFF policy by which you were regulated when at the head of the government, and as chairman of the Committee on Manufactures in the Congress of the United States. No base subserviency to Foreign Powers dictated your course, but a manly and determined support of the true interests of the country, by the protection of its industry, and by a proper reciprocity of countervailing restrictions.
We thank you, Sir—we thank you with the truest friendship and the deepest sincerity.
We honor you for the lustre you have shed on all the high places it has been your good fortune to occupy—we praise you for that sublimest virtue which shines in all your actions—we see in your brow that undaunted valor which renders you inexorably firm in the discharge of all your public duties, and in your eye "that inextinguishable spark, that fires the souls of patriots."
Great and good Citizen! Venerable and Venerated Man! Panegyric or Eulogy, now, or hereafter, cannot add one cubit to your stature. Live on—live on, in honor and in glory—and when "this corruptible does put on incorruption, and this mortal, immortality," I pray God that it may be in the calm serenity of that summer's evening, when bonfires and illuminations light up the land, in commemoration of that glorious INDEPENDENCE, to the achievement of which your illustrious FATHER so largely, so eminently contributed.