to look back to a race of founders,
and a principle of institution, in which, it might seem to see the
realized idea of true heroism. That felicity, that pride, that help, is
ours. Our past--both its great eras, that of settlement, and that of
independence--should announce, should compel, should spontaneously
evolve as from a germ, a wise, moral, and glorious future. These heroic
men and women should not look down on a dwindled posterity. It should
seem to be almost of course, too easy to be glorious, that they who
keep the graves, bear the name, and boast the blood, of men in whom
the loftiest sense of duty blended itself with the fiercest spirit of
liberty, should add to their freedom, justice: justice to all men, to
all nations; justice, that venerable virtue, without which freedom,
valor, and power, are but vulgar things.

And yet is the past nothing, even our past, but as you, quickened by its
examples, instructed by its experiences, warned by its voices, assisted
by its accumulated instrumentality, shall reproduce it in the life of
to-day. Its once busy existence, various sensations, fiery trials,
dear-bought triumphs; its dynasty of heroes, all its pulses of joy and
anguish, and hope and fear, and love and praise, are with the years
beyond the flood. "The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures." Yet,
gazing on these, long and intently, and often, we may pass into the
likeness of the departed,--may emulate their labors, and partake of
their immortality.

* * * * *

=_William H. Seward,[24] 1801-1872._=

"Oration on Lafayette," July 16th, 1834.

=_94._= HIS MILITARY SERVICES IN AMERICA.

There were indeed other and heroic volunteers from European countries,
but they were either exiles who had no homes, or they were soldiers by
profession, who followed the sword wherever a harvest was to be reaped
with it.... Lafayette's first act in America gave new evidence of
disinterestedness and magnanimity. He found the small patriot army rent
asunder by jealous feuds growing out of ambition for preferment. What
revolution, however holy, has not suffered by such evils! How many
a revolution has been lost by them! Schuyler, the brave, the
high-spirited, and wise, now the victim of an intrigue, was hesitating
whether to submit to a privation of rank justly due him, or to resign.
Putnam's recent promotion produced bitter complaints; and Gates was
laboring night and day, aided by a powerf