For American Youth to Read, and for Thieves and Traitors to Ponder.
With the Declaration of Independence in his right hand, John Adams, on the Fourth of July, 1776, rose and said:
“Mr. President:—Read this Declaration at the head of the Army; every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered to maintain it or perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit: religion will approve of it, and the love of religious liberty will cling around it, resolved to stand with it or fall with it. Send it to the public halls—proclaim it there—let them hear it who heard the first roar of the enemy’s cannon—let them see it who saw their sons and their brothers fall on the field of Bunker’s Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support. Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs; but I can see—see clearly through this day’s business. You and I may not live to the time when this Declaration shall be made good,—we may die—die colonists—die slaves—die, it may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold.—Be it so—be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country. Through the thick gloom of the present I see the brightness of the future, as the sun in Heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgivings, with bonfires and illuminations. On its annual return they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears—not of subjection and slavery—not of agony and distress—but of gratitude, of consolation, and of joy. And I leave off as I began—that live or die—survive or perish—I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment—Independence now, and Independence forever!”
Reflections at the grave of Charles A. Jesup, who reposes in the suburbs of Westport, Ct.; written by Stephen H. Branch, in his early years:—
To thy loved tomb I’ve come to day,
To sing of thee a mournful lay:
Not in the strain I used to sing,
For life is now a weary thing.
As I came here, I gladly found
A pretty bird upon thy mound:
It lingered long, and sang as though
Departed worth reposed below.
By thy lone grave, in this strange land,
‘Neath April skies, I hapless stand:
While num’rous flocks and herds I spy,
With honest farmers ploughing nigh.
I can but think, as I look round,
That you once played upon this ground:
The hills! the stream! the velvet lawn!
E’en house I see where thou wast born!