Excerpt from Oration, Commemorative of American Independence: Pronounced at Salisbury, July Fourth, 1810 With diffidence I address you on an occasion the most interesting, the most noble, and sublime. The celebration of our rights, freedom, and independence outfight to warm every heart, and inflame the coldest insensibility with the sacred fire of patriotic love. The speaker solicits your attention concerning a subject, as important, as your existence, and which involves all your privileges, civil, political, and religious. On this memorable day, our delegates assembled in Congress, made a solemn declaration, that we by right, ought to be a free and independent nation. They pledged their fortunes, their lives, and their sacred honor, that they would defend their rights, protect their liberty, and preserve them inviolate to their posterity. They made this declaration, when our country afforded only a melancholy scene of ruin, distress, and blood. They supported at that time the glorious cause of liberty without finances, without system, and unaided by foreign alliance; yet the Illustrious Washington led our armies, and the Great Jehovah planted our ensign of renowned freedom. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.