In a case like
that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as
an hart."
But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad
sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the
pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only
reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in
which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich
inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence,
bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The
sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought
stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is _yours_, not
mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters
into the grand illuminated <350>temple of liberty, and call upon
him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and
sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking
me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct.
And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a
nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by
the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable
ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and
woe-smitten people.
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