I be blamed for it?  Was I not a Northern man?  Did I not know Massachusetts feelings and prejudices?  But what of that?  I am an American.  I was made a whole man, and I did not mean to make myself half a one.  I felt that I had a duty to perform to my country, to my own reputation; for I flattered myself that a service of forty years had given me some character, on which I had a right to repose for my justification in the performance of a duty attended with some degree of local unpopularity.  I thought it my duty to pursue this course, and I did not care what was to be the consequence.  I felt it was my duty, in a very alarming crisis, to come out; to go for my country, and my whole country; and to exert any power I had to keep that country together.  I cared for nothing, I was afraid of nothing, but I meant to do my duty.  Duty performed makes a man happy; duty neglected makes a man unhappy.  I therefore, in the face of all discouragements and all dangers, was ready to go forth and do what I thought my country, your country, demanded of me.  And, Gentlemen, allow me to say here to-day, that if the fate of John Rogers had stared me in the face, if I had seen the stake, if I had heard the fagots already crackling, by the blessing of Almighty God I would have gone on and discharged the duty which I thought my country called upon me to perform.  I would have become a martyr to save that country.

And now, Gentlemen, farewell.  Live and be happy.  Live like patriots, live like Americans.  Live in the enjoyment of the inestimable blessings which your fathers prepared for you; and if any thing that I may do hereafter should be inconsistent, in the slightest degree, with the opinions and principles which I have this day submitted to you, then discard me for ever from your recollection.

THE ADDITION TO THE CAPITOL.

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF THE ADDITION TO THE CAPITOL, ON THE 4th OF JULY, 1851.[1]

Fellow-Citizens,—­I greet you well; I give you joy, on the return of this anniversary; and I felicitate you, also, on the more particular purpose of which this ever-memorable day has been chosen to witness the fulfilment.  Hail! all hail!  I see before and around me a mass of faces, glowing with cheerfulness and patriotic pride.  I see thousands of eyes turned towards other eyes, all sparkling with gratification and delight.  This is the New World!  This is America!  This is Washington! and this the Capitol of the United States!  And where else, among the nations, can the seat of government be surrounded, on any day of any year, by those who have more reason to rejoice in the blessings which they possess?  Nowhere, fellow-citizens! assuredly, nowhere!  Let us, then, meet this rising sun with joy and thanksgiving!

This is that day of the year which announced to mankind the great fact of American Independence.  This fresh and brilliant morning blesses our vision with another beholding of the birthday of our nation; and we see that nation, of recent origin, now among the most considerable and powerful, and spreading over the continent from sea to sea.