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Where is France? Some of her sons and daughters are here, participating in the enjoyment of this festive occasion, recognized as, and doubtless feeling like, Americans. But alas! for that great nation--her abandonment of the doctrine of a superintending Providence, and the substitution of an atheistical dogma, that "death is an eternal sleep," resulted in the "reign of terror"--from which but partially recovered, she with frenzied pertinacity avowed the indissolubility of the church and state, and the inequality of man, and hence, though oceans of blood have been shed, and millions upon millions of treasure expended for liberty, France, polite, proud, noble France is yet enslaved! Once more, the bird of liberty, perched upon the standard of American independence, has long been looking with an eagle eye to the disenthrallment of the northern half of this continent; but as yet, the descendants of Spain in the south, and of England and France in the north, fail to appreciate the lesson of history, and realize the secret of our national success.
But, shall we inquire, for the support of our theory, after the opinions and practices of our own statesmen and patriots? Washington prays before he enters the battlefield. Roger Williams proclaims the perpetual divorce of the church from the state. And Jefferson acquires imperishable renown by declaring all to be free and equal. The framers of the constitution of the United States, the palladium of our liberty, six of whom were members of the Continental Congress which adopted the Declaration of Independence, declare "that the people of the United States ordain and establish this constitution, in order (among other things) to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity"--whose posterity we are. But go with me to Mt. Vernon; go to the beloved spot honored with the privilege of holding the remains of the father of our country, who, being dead, yet speaketh in accents of paternal regard; and while you linger around that hallowed tomb, hear him whisper into your ear, "The unity of government which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you." It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth--as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of external and internal enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should estimate properly the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness--that you should cherish a cordial, habitual and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and to speak of it as the palladium of your political safety and prosperity, watching for its safety with a jealous anxiety, discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning on the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties that link the various parts. Again, in this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other. These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patriotic desire. To listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. Go to the Hermitage and lingering around the remains of the "Old Roman," hear him declare that "The lessons contained in this invaluable legacy of Washington to his