Independence, placed herself at the head of the
wavering column. In such manner America heard and hearkened to the voice
of her chief; and now closing ranks, and moving with reanimated step,
the thirteen commonwealths wheeled and faced to the front, on the line
of the Union, under the sacred ensign of the Constitution.

Thus at last was the crowning work of Washington accomplished. Out of
the tempests of war, and the tumults of civil commotion, the ages bore
their fruit, and the long yearning of humanity was answered. "Rome to
America" is the eloquent inscription on one stone contributed to yon
colossal shaft--taken from the ancient Temple of Peace that once stood
hard by the palace of the Caesars. Uprisen from the sea of revolution,
fabricated from the ruins of the battered Bastiles, and dismantled
palaces of unhallowed power, stood forth now the Republic of republics,
the Nation of nations, the Constitution of constitutions, to which all
lands and times and tongues had contributed of their wisdom. And the
priestess of Liberty was in her holy temple.

When Salamis had been fought and Greece again kept free, each of the
victorious generals voted himself to be first in honor; but all agreed
that Themistocles was second. When the most memorable struggle for the
rights of human nature, of which time holds record, was thus happily
concluded in the muniment of their preservation, whoever else was
second, unanimous acclaim declared that Washington was first. Nor in
that struggle alone does he stand foremost. In the name of the people of
the United States, their president, their senators, their
representatives, and their judges, do crown to-day with the grandest
crown that veneration has ever lifted to the brow of glory, him, whom
Virginia gave to America, whom America has given to the world and to the
ages, and whom mankind with universal suffrage has proclaimed the
foremost of the founders of empire in the first degree of greatness;
whom Liberty herself has anointed as the first citizen in the great
Republic of Humanity.

Encompassed by the inviolate seas stands to-day the American Republic
which he founded--a freer Greater Britain--uplifted above the powers and
principalities of the earth, even as his monument is uplifted over roof
and dome and spire of the multitudinous city.

Long live the Republic of Washington! Respected by mankind, beloved of
all its sons, long may it be the asylum of the poor and oppressed of all