Marble columns may, indeed, moulder into dust, time may erase all impress from the crumbling stone, but their fame remains; for with American liberty it rose, and with American liberty only can it perish.
William Seward: “Marble columns may, indeed, moulder into dust, time may erase all impress from the crumbling stone, but their fame…”
Editor's note · Context
Seward argues that while physical monuments may decay, the fame of those who fought for liberty will endure as long as liberty itself exists.
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Stoicism, that had no charity for error, never converted any human society to virtue; Christianity, that remembers the true nature of man, has encompassed a large portion of the globe.
It depends not on the zeal and firmness only of the reformers, but on their wisdom and moderation also.
That freedom and that security required that the nations of Europe should relax their grasp on the American Continent.
The perils of the enterprize are already passed--its difficulties have already been removed--when it shall have been accomplished it will be justly regarded as the last noble effort which rendered the Republic imperishable.





