One hundred years ago, on this spot, American independence was made a great fact in the history of nations. Until the surrender of the British army under Burgoyne, the Declaration of Independence was but a declaration. It was a patriotic purpose asserted in bold words by brave men, who pledged for its maintenance their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. But here it was made a fact by virtue of armed force. It had been regarded by the world merely as an act of defiance, but it was now seen that it contained the germs of a government which the event we celebrate made one of the powers of the earth. Here rebellion was made revolution. Upon this ground, that which had in the eye of the law been treason, became triumphant patriotism. At the break of day, in the judgment of the world, our fathers were rebels. When the echoes of the evening gun died away along this valley, they were patriots who had rescued their country from wrong and outrage. We had passed through the baptism of blood, and gained a name among the nations of the earth. Before the Revolution the people of the several colonies held but little intercourse. They were estranged from each other by distance, by sectional prejudices, by differences of lineage and religious creeds. But when the men of Virginia went to Massachusetts to rescue Boston, when the men of the East and South battled side by side with those from the Middle States, when Greene and Lincoln went to the relief of the Southern colonies, all prejudices not only died away, but more than fraternal love animated every patriotic heart from the bleak forests of New England to the milder airs of Georgia. And now that a hundred years have passed, and our country has become great beyond the wildest dreams of our fathers, will not the story of their sufferings revive in the breast of all the love of our country, of our common country, and all who live within its boundaries? It was the most remarkable fact of the Revolutionary War and of the formation of state and national governments, that although the colonists were of different lineages and languages, living under different climates, with varied pursuits and forms of labor, cut off from intercourse by distance, yet, in spite of all these obstacles to accord, they were from the outset animated by common views, feelings, and purposes. When the independence was gained, they were able, after a few weeks spent in consultation, to form the constitution under which we have lived for nearly one hundred years. There can be no stronger proof that American institutions were born and shaped by American necessities. This fact should give us new faith in the lasting nature of our government.