Let us then acknowledge
the blessing, let us feel it deeply and powerfully, let us cherish a
strong affection for it, and resolve to maintain and perpetuate it. The
blood of our fathers, let it not have been shed in vain; the great hope
of posterity, let it not be blasted.
The striking attitude, too, in which we stand to the world around us,
a topic to which, I fear, I advert too often, and dwell on too long,
cannot be altogether omitted here. Neither individuals nor nations can
perform their part well, until they understand and feel its importance,
and comprehend and justly appreciate all the duties belonging to it.
It is not to inflate national vanity, nor to swell a light and empty
feeling of self-importance, but it is that we may judge justly of
our situation, and of our own duties, that I earnestly urge this
consideration of our position and our character among the nations of the
earth. It cannot be denied, but by those who would dispute against the
sun, that with America, and in America, a new era commences in human
affairs. This era is distinguished by free representative governments,
by entire religious liberty, by improved systems of national
intercourse, by a newly awakened and unconquerable spirit of free
inquiry and by a diffusion of knowledge through the community, such as
has been before altogether unknown and unheard of.
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