ORATION. 15 into blood, and when the. first-born in so nTany a household lies dead, we still refuse to listen to the voice that thunders from on high — “ Let my People go.” After the 17th of June, the heart of the nation cried out for independence, while Congress, lagging far behind the people, delayed to speak the decisive word. * Before the 19th of April, “no thinking man” breathed such a wish. The leading patriots repelled the charge of desiring it, as a slander. In 1774, Congress, on the motion of a most radical member, passed a resolve, which not only excluded all idea of separation, but admitted the right, of Parliament to lay taxes for the regulation of trade. And timid, honest men pointed to this vote, and could not see that ages of progress had rolled on since it was passed. They failed to recognize the truth stated by Paine in his Common Sense, that “ all plans and proposals prior to the 19th of April, i. e. the commencement of hostilities, are like an old almanac, however proper once, useless and superseded now.” They did not know that in revolutionary times the wisdom of last year is folly, and the truth of yesterday is a lie to-day. Bolder spirits said: “What was true in 1774, has ceased to be true in ’75, in the presence of actual war. Concord and Bunker Hill, the burning of Charlestown and Falmouth, the fall of Warren and Montgomery, have changed our relations to England, and conferred new rights on the colonists. The land which has been
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