"Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly,
through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not
live to the time when this declaration shall be made good. We may die;
die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be, ignominiously and on the
scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my
country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be
ready, at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may.
But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a
country, and that a free country.
"But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured that this
declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but
it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick
gloom of the present I see the brightness of the future as the sun in
heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are
in our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with
thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On
its annual return they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of
subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of
gratitude, and of joy.
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