But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They
were a fortress of strength; but what invading foeman could never do the
silent artillery of time has done--the leveling of its walls. They are
gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurricane
has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk,
despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded,
to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated
limbs a few more ruder storms, then to sink and be no more.
They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have
crumbled away that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply
their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober
reason. Passion has helped us, but can do so no more. It will in future
be our enemy. Reason cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason--must
furnish all the materials for our future support and defense. Let those
materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in
particular, a reverence for the Constitution and laws; and that we
improved to the last, that we remained free to the last, that we revered
his name to the last, that during his long sleep we permitted no hostile
foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place, shall be that which to
learn the last trump shall awaken our Washington.
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