Our duty is plain and bright before us,--plain as day, and bright as the sun.

This is not the moment for any surrender to threats, even if Massachusetts could ever yield to such compulsion.

It was the saying of Samuel Adams, in the early stage of our Revolution, that we should be respected abroad just in proportion to the firmness of our conduct.

As they are unquestionably genuine memorials of the Washington family, and possess on this account a singular historical interest, I cannot imagine that a more appropriate disposition of them could be made.

I am glad, my friends, to see so large an audience assembled for the purpose of hearing one of our most accomplished scholars and orators discourse on a subject lying apart from the ordinary strifes and immediate interests of the day.

Concerning the services rendered by Lafayette to our country, to our own Republic, in the most critical stage of its existence, there is no controversy.

And your presence here to-night in such numbers declares that there are multitudes among us who cherish and preserve a warm admiration, a generous and purifying enthusiasm, for the noble examples of self-sacrifice bequeathed to us by a…

Among public men, in all times and all countries, among all that class who have been actors in the events which make up the history of the world, there are few, unfortunately, who can compare with Lafayette in a course of steady…

To all suggestions of concession the North made haste to answer in the negative.

How timely and impressively that bright example teaches adherence to Liberty and Principle, and resistance to concession and compromise, at the present crisis!

Sumner’s nominal subject was ‘Lafayette,’ but he made his sketch of the noble Marquis a vehicle for the expression of the most ardent wishes and aspirations after negro equality.

There is but one personage to whom this description is justly applicable, and you have anticipated me when I pronounce the name of Lafayette.

Nor do I believe that my interest goes far beyond that of the American people, when I think how his name is a household word, dear to all alike, old and young.

And now holding up to view a model of surpassing fidelity in support of Human Rights, I am not without hope that others may see the beauty of such a character and try to make it in some measure their own.

But as some are born poets and others are born mathematicians, the Marquis de Lafayette was born with instinctive fidelity to the great principles of Liberty and Equality, by the side of which all hereditary distinctions disappear.

Liberty, he had the habit of saying, was with him a religion, a love, and a geometrical certainty; and this passion, thus sacred, ardent, and confident, was inborn, perpetual, and irresistible.

But his undaunted temper was quickened anew, and when they told him that with their damaged credit it was impossible to provide a vessel for his conveyance, he exclaimed: “Thus far you have seen my zeal only; now it shall be something more.

It is while danger presses that I wish to join your fortunes.” Noble words, worthy of immortality, and never to be heard without a throb by an American heart!

Rarely has hero gone forth on so beautiful an errand; for he carried words of cheer to our fathers, then in despairing struggle for the Great Declaration, and opened the way for those fleets and armies of France soon after marshalled on…

His first word, as he touched the land, was a vow to conquer or perish with it.

With heavenly generosity he had turned away from his own country to help the cause of Freedom in another hemisphere, and here he found man despoiled of all personal rights, and even degraded to be property, by those whose own struggles…

It is much to have inspired the most tender friendship which history records in the life of Washington.

All these were in our revolutionary contest gathered about Washington; but Lafayette alone obtained place in his heart.

Friendship is always a solace and delight; but such a friendship was a testimony.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.