Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, 1817-1845Webster, Daniel
General
Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, 1817-1845
Webster, Daniel
Speeches, addresses, etc., American
existence had otherwise begun? Who would desire the power of going back
to the ages of fable? Who would wish for an origin obscured in the
darkness of antiquity? Who would wish for other emblazoning of his
country's heraldry, or other ornaments of her genealogy, than to be
able to say, that her first existence was with intelligence, her first
breath the inspiration of liberty, her first principle the truth of
divine religion?
Local attachments and sympathies would ere long spring up in the
breasts of our ancestors, endearing to them the place of their refuge.
Whatever natural objects are associated with interesting scenes and
high efforts obtain a hold on human feeling, and demand from the heart
a sort of recognition and regard. This Rock soon became hallowed in the
esteem of the Pilgrims, and these hills grateful to their sight.
Neither they nor their children were again to till the soil of England,
nor again to traverse the seas which surround her. But here was a new
sea, now open to their enterprise, and a new soil, which had not failed
to respond gratefully to their laborious industry, and which was
already assuming a robe of verdure. Hardly had they provided shelter
for the living, ere they were summoned to erect sepulchres for the
dead. The ground had become sacred, by enclosing the remains of some of
their companions and connections. A parent, a child, a husband, or a
wife, had gone the way of all flesh, and mingled with the dust of New
England. We naturally look with strong emotions to the spot, though it
be a wilderness, where the ashes of those we have loved repose. Where
the heart has laid down what it loved most, there it is desirous of
laying itself down. No sculptured marble, no enduring monument, no
honorable inscription, no ever-burning taper that would drive away the
darkness of the tomb, can soften our sense of the reality of death, and
hallow to our feelings the ground which is to cover us, like the
consciousness that we shall sleep, dust to dust, with the objects of
our affections.
In a short time other causes sprung up to bind the Pilgrims with new
cords to their chosen land. Children were born, and the hopes of future
generations arose, in the spot of their new habitation. The second
generation found this the land of their nativity, and saw that they
were bound to its fortunes. They beheld their fathers' graves around
them, and while they read the memorials of their toils and labors, they
rejoiced in the inheritance which they found bequeathed to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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