head of the army;
every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered,
to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the
pulpit; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will
cling round it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it
to the public halls; proclaim it there; let them hear it who heard the
first roar of the enemy's cannon, let them see it who saw their brothers
and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in the streets of
Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support.

"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. Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My
judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that
I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope, in this life, I am now
ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off as I begun, that live
or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration. It is my living
sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment,
independence, now, and INDEPENDENCE FOREVER."

And so that day shall be honored, illustrious prophet and patriot! so
that day shall be honored, and as often as it returns, thy renown shall
come along with it, and the glory of