18 [Senate 



heavens : we will so nurture and protect it, that its verdure shall be 

 perennial, that no spirit of animosity shall sway its branches, that not 

 even a whisper of discord shall rustle in its topmost boughs. 



One word more, and I have done. But with that last word, I am 

 about to address, though but in imagination, the assembled people of 

 New-York. It is a tale often repeated, that to do honor to agricul- 

 ture, the Emperor of China is, himself, accustomed in the spring- 

 time of every year, to hold the plow and turn a furrow. Under our 

 republican institutions, far more is achieved. The state itself in- 

 cludes, and is in the greatest measure constituted by its farmers. 

 They themselves are the kings that hold the plow and drive the team, 

 every day in the year. The whole commonwealth watches over the 

 farmer. This society performs its office as the agent of the people. 

 They are assembled at our fair, to view with honest exultation, the 

 products of the farms and workshops, and single out this occasion 

 alone, to award public honors to exalted merit. It is right, therefore, 

 to assume that the empire state itself is present in your midst. 



And has it occurred to you that this great commonwealth — the 

 most numerous people ever united under a popular form of govern- 

 ment — is emphatically a commocwealth of the living 1 Go to the 

 Old World, and your daily walk is over catacombs ; you travel among 

 tombs. Here the living of the present day outnumber the dead of all 

 the generations since your land was discovered. All, all, who sleep 

 beneath the soil of New-York, are fewer in number than you who 

 move above their graves. Look about you and see what the men of 

 the past have accomplished. Concentrate in your mind all that they 

 have achieved ; the beauty of their farms, the length and grandeur of 

 their canals and railroads, the countless fleets of canal boats they have 

 constructed ; their ships that have visited every continent and disco- 

 vered a new one ; their towns enlivening the public plains ; their vil- 

 lages that gem the hollows ; the imperial magnificence of their cities ; 

 and when you have collected all these things in your thoughts, then 

 hear me when I say to you, that you of this living generation as you 

 outnumber all the dead — are bound, before your eyes are sealed in 

 death, to accomplish for New-York more than has been accomplished 

 for New- York thus far in all time. Well have you taken the device 

 on your banners ; the sun as he emerges gloriously above the horizon 

 and comes rejoicing in th5 East : Well have you chosen your motto : 

 " Excelsior j'^ upwards, still upwards. Mighty commonwealth ! lift 



