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THE FOURTH OF JULY.

BY HON. DANIEL WEBSTER.

THIS is that day of the year which announced to mankind the great fact of American Independence! This fresh and brilliant morning blesses our vision with another beholding of the birth-day of our nation: and we see that nation, of recent origin, now among the most considerable and powerful, and spreading over the continent from sea to sea.

"Westward the course of empire takes its way;

The four first acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Time's noblest offering is the last."

On the day of the Declaration of Independence, our illustrious fathers performed the first scene in the last great act of this drama one, in real importance, infinitely exceeding that for which the great English poet invoked

"A muse of fire,

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene."

The Muse inspiring our fathers was the Genius of Liberty, all on fire with a sense of oppression, and a resolution to throw it off; the whole world was the stage, and higher characters than princes trod it; and, instead of monarch, countries, and nations, and the age, beheld the swelling scene. How well

the characters were cast, and how well each acted his part, and what emotions the whole performance excited, let history, now and hereafter, tell.

On the Fourth of July, 1776, the representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, declared that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States. This declaration, made by most patriotic and resolute men, trusting in the justice of their cause, and the protection of Heaven, and yet made not without deep solicitude and anxiety,--has now stood for seventy-five years, and still stands. It was sealed in blood. It has met dangers, and overcome them; it has had enemies, and conquered them; it has had detractors, and abashed them all; it has had doubting friends, but it has cleared all the doubts away; and now, to-day, raising its august form higher than the clouds, twenty millions of people contemplate it with hallowed love, and the world beholds it, and the consequences which have followed from it, with profound admiration.

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This aniversary animates, and gladdens, and unites, all American hearts. On other days of the year we may party men, indulging in controversies more or less important to the public good; we may have likes and dislikes, and we may maintain our political differences, often with warmth, and sometimes with angry feelings. But to-day we are Americans all; and all nothing but Americans. As the great luminary over our heads, dissipating mists and fogs, now cheers the whole hemisphere, so do the associations connected with this

day disperse all cloudy and sullen weather in the minds and feelings of true Americans. Every man's heart swells within him, every man's port and bearing becomes somewhat more proud and lofty, as he remembers that seventy-five years have rolled away, and that the great inheritance of liberty is still his; his, undiminished and unimpaired; his, in all its original glory; his to enjoy, his to protect, and his to transmit to future generations.

SEVENTY-SIX.

BY W. C. BRYANT.

WHAT heroes from the woodland sprung When, through the fresh awakened land,

The thrilling cry of freedom rung,

And to the work of warfare strung
The yeoman's iron hand!

Hills flung the cry to hills around,

And ocean mart replied to mart,

And streams, whose springs were yet unfound, Pealed far away the startling sound

Into the forest's heart.

Then marched the brave from rocky steep,

From mountain river swift and cold;

The borders of the stormy deep,

The vales where gathered waters sleep,

Sent up the strong and bold,—

As if the very earth again

Grew quick with God's creating breath, And, from the sods of grove and glen,

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