FELLOW-CITIZENS,—Five years have now passed since it was my privilege last to set foot in Faneuil Hall. During this long, unwilling exile, whether at home or abroad, my “heart untravelled” has fondly turned to this historic place, and often have I seemed to hear those utterances for Human Rights which echo along its walls. The distant in place was confounded with the distant in time, and the accents of our own Burlingame seemed to mingle with the words of Adams, Hancock, and Warren, in the past. Let me express my gratitude that I am permitted once more to enjoy these generous utterances, no longer in dream or vision only, but in reality.
Could these venerable arches speak, what stories could they not tell,—sometimes of victory and sometimes of defeat, sometimes of gladness and sometimes of mourning, sometimes of hope and sometimes of fear! The history of American Freedom, with all its anxieties, struggles, and triumphs, commencing before National Independence, and continued down to the very contest now about to close,—all this might be written from the voices of this Hall. But, thank God! the days of defeat, of mourning, of fear, have passed, and these walls will record only those notes of victory already beginning to sound in our ears.
There are anniversaries in our history noticed by young and old with grateful emotion; but to-morrow’s sun will set on a day more glorious for Freedom than any anniversary since the fourth of July, 1776. The forces for a long time mustering are about to meet face to face; but the result is not doubtful. That Power, which, according to the boast of Slave-Masters, has governed the country for more than fifty years,—organizing cabinets and courts, directing the army and navy, controlling legislation, usurping offices, stamping its own pernicious character upon the national policy, and especially claiming all the Territories for Slavery,—that Power which has taught us by example how much of tyranny there may be in the name of Democracy, is doomed. The great clock will soon strike, sounding its knell. Every four years a new President is chosen, but rarely a new government. To-morrow we shall have not only a new President, but a new government. A new order of things will begin, and our history will proceed on a grander scale, in harmony with those sublime principles in which it commenced. Let the knell sound!
“Ring out the old, ring in the new!
Ring out the false, ring in the true!
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife!
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws!”