152 BULLETIN 16 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



that little can be said by any one, but what, in the language of the heart — in 

 tones not loud, but deep — every one present has literally said to himself. My 

 respected friend from Virginia, by whom this offering of patriotic sentiment 

 has been presented to the Representative Assembly of the nation, it seems 

 to me, already said all that can be said suitable to this occasion. In parting 

 from him, as after a few short days we must all do, it will on my part be 

 sorrow, that in all probability I shall see his face and hear his voice no more. 

 But his words of this day have been planted in my memory, and will there 

 remain till the last pulsation of my heart. The sword of "Washington ! The 

 stafE of Franklin! Oh, sir, what associations are linked in adamant with 

 those names. Washington ! the warrior of human freedom — Washington ! 

 whose sword my friend has said was never drawn but in the cause of Ms 

 country, and never sheathed when needed in his country's cause ! — Franklin ! 

 the philosopher of the thunderbolt, the printing press, and the ploughshare. 



What names are these in the scanty catalogue of the benefactors of man- 

 kind — ^Washington and Franklin ! What other two men, whose lives belong 

 to the 18th century of Christendom, have left deeper impression of themselves 

 upon the age in which they lived, and upon all aftertimes? Washington, the 

 warrior and the legislator! In war contending, by the wager of battle, for 

 the independence of his country, and for the freedom of the human race — 

 ever manifesting, amidst the horrors of war, by precept and example, his 

 reverence for the laws of peace, and for the tenderest sympathies of humanity. 

 In peace, soothing the ferocious spirit of discord among his own countrymen 

 into harmony, and giving to that very svvord now presented to his country a 

 charm more potent than that attributed in ancient times to the lyre of Orpheus. 

 Franklin, the mechanic of his own fortune, teaching, in early youth, under 

 the shackles of indigence, the way to wealth ; and, in the shade of obscurity, 

 the path to greatness ; in the maturity of manhood, disarming the thunder 

 of its terrors, the lightning of its fatal blast; and wresting from the tyrant's 

 hand the still more afflictive sceptre of oppression ; while descending into the 

 vale of years, traversing the Atlantic ocean: braving, in the dead of winter, 

 the battle and the breeze; bearing in his hand the charter of Independence, 

 which he had contributed to form; and tendering from the self-created nation, 

 to the mightiest monarchs of Europe, the olive-branch of peace, the mercurial 

 wand of commerce, and the amulet of protection and safety to the man of 

 peace on the pathless ocean from the inexorable cruelty and merciless rapacity 

 of war; and, finally, in the last stage of life, with fourscore winters on his 

 head, under the torture of an incurable disease, returning to his native land, 

 closing his days as the Chief Magistrate of his adopted Commonwealth, after 

 contributing, by his counsels, under the Presidency of Washington, and record- 

 ing his name, under the sanction of devout prayer, invoked by him to God, to 

 that Constitution, under the authority of which we are here assembled as 

 the Representatives of the North American people, to receive, in their name, 

 and for them, these venerable relics of the wise, the valiant, and the good 

 founders of our great confederated Republic these sacred symbols of our golden 

 age. 



May they be deposited among the archives of our Government; and may every 

 American who shall hereafter behold them, ejaculate a mingled offering of 

 praise to that Supreme Ruler of the universe, by whose tender mercies our 

 Union has been hitherto preserved through all the vicissitudes and revolutions 

 of this turbulent world, and of prayer for the continuance of these blessings, 

 by the dispensations of his providence to our beloved country from age to age, 

 till time shall be no more. [Great applause.] 



