330 TFJ^(70iV^/S'/JV" STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
embraced the greatest hazards to themselves and to all the people 
from whom they held this disputed discretion, but which, to their 
sober judgments, promised benefits to that people and their poster¬ 
ity, from generation to generation, exceeding these hazards and 
commensurate with its own fitness. The question of their conduct 
is to be measured by the actual weight and pressure of the mani¬ 
fold considerations which surrounded the subject before them, and 
by the abundant evidence that they comprehended their vastness 
and variety. By a voluntary and responsible choice they willed to 
do what was done, and what without their will would not have been 
done. Thus estimated, the illustrious act covers all who partici¬ 
pated in it with its own renown, and makes them forever conspicu¬ 
ous among men, as it is forever famous among events. And thus 
the signers of the Declaration of our Independence, “ wrote their 
names where all nations should behold them, and all time should 
not efface them.” It was, “ in the course of human events,” in¬ 
trusted to them to determine whether the fullness of time had come 
when a nation should be born in a day. They declared the inde¬ 
pendence of a new nation in the sense in which men declare eman¬ 
cipation or declare war; the declaration created what was declared. 
Famous, always, among men, are the founders of states, and for¬ 
tunate above all others in such fame are these, our fathers, whose 
combined wisdom and courage began the great structure of our 
national existence, and laid sure the foundations of liberty and jus¬ 
tice on which it rests. Fortunate, first, in the clearness of their 
title and in the world’s acceptance of their rightful claim. Fortu¬ 
nate, next, in the enduring magnitude of the state they founded 
and the beneficence of its protection of the vast interests of human 
life and happiness which have here had their home. Fortunate, 
again, in the admiring imitation of their work, which the institu¬ 
tions of the most powerful and most advanced nations more and 
more exhibit; and, last of all, fortunate in the full demonstration 
of our later time that their work is adequate to withstand the most 
disastrous storms of human fortunes, and survive unwrecked, un¬ 
shaken, and unharmed. 
This day has now been celebrated by a great people, at each re¬ 
currence of its anniversary, for a hundred years, with every form of 
ostentatious joy, with every demonstration of respect and gratitude 
for the ancestral virtue which gave it its glory, and with the firmest 
