waver? No! Mr. President! From the time I took my seat in this Convention, men who never knew me, who never before had seen me, coming from a far-off State, cast for me their votes from the beginning. Well may I feel proud of this, and claim it as a rose-bud in the wreath of political destiny. And now I see the land of Presidents-the ancient Dominion-coming here and laying her highest honors at my feet. Virginia, the land of chivalry, the land of generosity, the land of high and noble impulses-a land of all others willing to rescue my name from every imputation. I cherish her vote as of the highest worth and import. As an offering unsought, unrequested, opposed to my own wishes, it has been brought to me; and is, therefore, the more valuable. But while I thus prize and shall hold in grateful remembrance to my last hour a compliment in every respect so distinguished, I could not consent to a nomination here without incurring the imputation of unfaithfully executing the trust committed to me by my constituents-without turning my back on an old and valued friend. Nothing that could be offered me-not even the highest position in the government, the office of President of the United States-could compensate me for such a desertion of my trust. Icould receive no higher compliment than has here been tendered me, but I cannot hesitate in the discharge of my duty. I would say to my Southern friends that I shall go home a prouder, if not a better man. What I have met with here today has given me renewed assurance, that "truth crushed to earth will rise again." And may I not ask my friends, the representatives of the Democracy of the Old Dominion, who have by their generous action stayed up my hands, may I not successfully invoke them, by all the history of the past, by the rich fruition of the present, and the glorious hopes of the future of our country, to go with me for the nomination of one who has been abundantly tried and ever found faithful, Lewis Cass of Michigan. [Applause.] We cannot find a single individual acceptable to us all. Every one can pass criticisms upon opposing candidates, and even upon his own peculiar favorite. None are perfect. From the accomplished statesman of Pennsylvania to the hero of San Jacinto, every one can be charged with defects real or fancied, and I can repeat to oppo nents: "Go, wiser thou, and in thy scale of sense It will be a long time before we can come together in favor of any one man, if each insists on being absolutely satisfied. There are many stars in the galaxy. Let us then cease our struggles and act in a spirit of forbearance, conciliation, and compromise. I tender my most grateful thanks to my friends of the " Old Dominion" for the choice offering they have brought me, and congratulate them and all other friends upon the good temper which prevails in this Convention. I ask them not to expect me to depart from the line of my intentions, and I know they will not. My spirit is willing, and the flesh is not weak; the highest temptation, I repeat, could not induce me to depart from this course. ["Mr. Leake wished to say a word for Virginia. Nathaniel Macon once said, that the Presidency was neither to be sought nor declined. The fact that the gentleman from New York declined was the highest argument in his favor. We wish to say that he has not been forced upon us." Published Proceedings. On the thirty-fifth ballot, the Virginia delegation cast the vote of the State for Franklin Pierce, and on the forty-ninth ballot he was unanimously nominated.] ORATION ON THE CELEBRATION OF THE ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. DELIVERED AT SYRACUSE, N. Y., July 4, 1853. [The publication of this Oration was preceded by the following correspondence: SYRACUSE, July 4th, 1853. VERY HONORABLE SIR: Being under instructions to that effect from the Committee of Arrangements for the Fourth, the undersigned do most respectfully solicit for publication a copy of your very able, eloquent, and patriotic Oration delivered before our citizens to-day. A wide diffusion of the lessons of that document among the masses, we are confident, will awaken a livelier appreciation than now exists of our greatness as a people among the nations of the earth, of the relations of other nations towards us, of the duties and obligations towards each other of the different members of our Confederacy, of the responsibilities and proprieties incumbent upon us as individual citizens of a government which is based upon the virtue and intelligence of its subjects, and of the broad nationality of principle and aim so necessary for the continual preservation of our beloved and blessed institutions. We trust, therefore, that our distinguished Orator may be pleased to grant the request in this note contained. And we have the honor, Sir, to be Your very humble fellow citizens, S. CORNING JUDD, E. B. GRISWOLD, ПION. DANIEL S. DICKINSON, Syracuse House. BINGHAMTON, July 6, 1853. GENTLEMEN-I did not find time to answer the very kind note which you placed in my hands on the evening of the Fourth, requesting a copy of my Anniversary Address for publication, until I reached home, and must urge my incessant engagements while with you for apology. The Address was prepared in great haste, and I fear is too carelessly written to bear the test of criticism; but as you believe the dissemination of its doctrines would prove salutary, I commit it to your discretion, relying upon the liberal indulgence of my friends and a generous public. I have the honor to be, &c., Sincerely yours, D. S. DICKINSON. Messrs. S. CORNING JUDD, B. M. HOPKINS, E. B. GRISWOLD, F. A. MARSH, and NICHOLAS COONEY.] MEMORABLE indeed, my fellow-citizens, is the day we celebrate, in the annals of our country: a day which marked the commencement of our national existence, and a new era in the history of governments among men; a day consecrated to patriotic impulses and proud recollections; a day upon which all the friends of constitutional liberty may merge their domestic divisions and offer their common oblations to the Giver of all good; a day for national enjoyment, for an interchange of kindly feelings and generous sentiments, mingled with that profitable self-communion which vigilance demands of a free people, that we may determine whether we have held in cherished remembrance that noble and successful experiment of our fathers in favor of the rights of man. The Western Hemisphere seems to have been consecrated by Heaven to the cause of civil and religious liberty. In the pursuit of freedom of conscience originated that scene of incomparable moral grandeur, the embarkation of the pilgrims: a scene whose sublimity eloquence and art have in vain sought to delineate, and which will live in tradition when all their storied memorials shall have passed away forever. The first conventional germ of the free government and its attendant blessings which we now enjoy in such liberal profusion, sprang up on board that bark of immortal memory, the Mayflower, as she was riding at anchor in a New England harbor. The primary community thus gathered, acting as their own legisla tors, with a brevity and simplicity most commendable, reared their fabric of social order upon broad and deep and enduring foundations by the following compact: "In the name of God, amen! "We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our most sovereign Lord King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, and defender of the faith, &c., having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the heathen parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together in a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices from time to time as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." This crude but sublime theory of free government, evolved by the Adams and Eves of this republic, was fostered, strengthened, and improved by the fathers of the Revolution. Invigorated by the free air of this refuge of liberty, and looking out upon the works of an Almighty artificer, they saw that the sun's golden light and genial warmth were spread out for all earth's children; that the refreshing rains of heaven descended alike upon the just and the unjust, and that the dews of evening fertilized for all. The lights of revelation and the deductions of reason taught them that the whole family of man were framed in the same Divine image, and were protected and sustained by the same good Providence; that all were created with the same immortal attributes, nourished by the same elements, depressed by the same infirmities, weaving the same mysterious web of earthly being, alike the subjects of disease and death, and bound to a common tribunal; and goaded to desperation by the frauds and oppressions of Kingcraft, they tore away the veil which concealed the deformities of a spurious theology and a fabricated legitimacy, and exposed them to the gaze of a plundered and outraged people. They proclaimed to the world the fraudulent pretensions of "Divine Right;" asserted the sacred doctrine of equality, and |