l detain you no longer by this faint and feeble
tribute to the memory of the illustrious dead. Even in other hands,
adequate justice could not be performed, within the limits of this
occasion. Their highest, their best praise, is your deep conviction of
their merits, your affectionate gratitude for their labors and services.
It is not my voice, it is this cessation of ordinary pursuits, this
arresting of all attention, these solemn ceremonies, and this crowded
house, which speak their eulogy. Their fame, indeed, is safe. That is
now treasured up beyond the reach of accident. Although no sculptured
marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record of
their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they
honored. Marble columns may, indeed, moulder into dust, time may erase
all impress from the crumbling stone, but their fame remains; for with
AMERICAN LIBERTY it rose, and with AMERICAN LIBERTY ONLY can it perish.
It was the last swelling peal of yonder choir, THEIR BODIES ARE BURIED
IN PEACE, BUT THEIR NAME LIVETH EVERMORE. I catch that solemn song, I
echo that lofty strain of funeral triumph, THEIR NAME LIVETH EVERMORE.

Of the illustrious signers of the declaration of independence there now
remains only Charles Carroll. He seems an aged oak, standing alone
on the plain, which time has spared a little longer after all its
cotemporaries have been leveled with the dust. Venerable object! we
delight to gather round its trunk, while yet it stands, and to dwell
beneath its shadow. Sole survivor of an assembly of as great men as the
world has witnessed, in a transaction one of the most important that
history records, what thoughts, what interesting reflections, must fill
his elevated and devout soul! If he dwell on the past, how touching its
recollections; if he survey the present, how happy, how joyous, how full
of the fruition of that hope, which his ardent patriotism indulged;
if he glance at the future, how does the prospect of his country's
advancement almost bewilder his weakened conception! Fortunate,
distinguished patriot! Interesting relic of the past! Let him know that,
while we honor the dead, we do not forget the living; and that there is
not a heart here which does not fervently pray that Heaven may keep him
yet back from the society of his companions.

And now, fellow-citizens, let us not retire from this occasion without
a deep and solemn conviction of the duties which have dev