nd humility that I venture to answer for the
Senate of the United States, and I believe the least I say on this head
will be the most prudent. But I shall be entirely safe in expressing my
doubt if there is a single Senator who would not be glad of a seat at
this generous banquet. What is the Senate? It is a component part of the
National Government. But we celebrate to-day more than any component
part of any government. We celebrate an epoch in the history of
mankind--not only never to be forgotten, but to grow in grandeur as
the world appreciates the elements of true greatness. Of mankind I
say--for the landing on Plymouth Rock, on December 22, 1620, marks the
origin of a new order of ages, which the whole human family will be
elevated. Then and there was the great beginning.

Throughout all time, from the dawn of history, men have swarmed to found
new homes in distant lands. The Tyrians, skirting Northern Africa, stopt
at Carthage; Carthaginians dotted Spain and even the distant coasts of
Britain and Ireland; Greeks gemmed Italy and Sicily with art-loving
settlements; Rome carried multitudinous colonies with her conquering
eagles. Saxons, Danes, and Normans violently mingled with the original
Britons. And in modern times, Venice, Genoa, Portugal, Spain, France,
and England, all sent forth emigrants to people foreign shores. But in
these various expeditions, trade or war was the impelling motive. Too
often commerce and conquest moved hand in hand, and the colony was
incarnadined with blood.

On the day we celebrate, the sun for the first time in his course looked
down upon a different scene, begun and continued under a different
inspiration. A few conscientious Englishmen, in obedience to the monitor
within, and that they might be free to worship God according to their
own sense of duty, set sail for the unknown wilds of the North American
continent. After a voyage of sixty-four days in the ship _Mayflower_,
with Liberty at the prow and Conscience at the helm, they sighted the
white sandbanks of Cape Cod, and soon thereafter in the small cabin
framed that brief compact, forever memorable, which is the first written
constitution of government in human history, and the very corner-stone
of the American Republic; and then these Pilgrims landed.

This compact was not only foremost in time, it was also august in
character, and worthy of perpetual example. Never before had the object
of the "civil body public" been announ