| Concord Monument | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 25 2010, 06:11 PM (91 Views) | |
| United States of America | Jan 25 2010, 06:11 PM Post #1 |
|
An Empire for Liberty
![]()
|
July 4, 1837 Today the people of Concord, Massachusetts, dedicated a monument to the battle between Minutemen and Redcoats that occurred there on April 19, 1775, which triggered the American Revolution. The ceremony included speeches, a choir singing Psalm 100 to the tune of "Old Hundred," New England's most familiar tune, and the reading of a poem written for the occasion by Ralph Waldo Emerson. A portion of Emerson's "Concord Hymn" was reprinted in local newspapers: By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world. O Thou, that made these heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee. Former President John Quincy Adams was also on hand to deliver an oration on this, the sixty-first anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. The theme of his speech was the redemptive mission of America in the world and its dedication to the moral improvement of mankind. "Why is it, Friends and Fellow Citizens, that you are here assembled? Why is it, that, entering upon the sixty-second year of our national existence, you have honored with an invitation to address you from this place, a fellow citizen of a former age, bearing in the records of his memory, the warm and vivid affections which attached him, at the distance of a full half century, to your town, and to your forefathers, then the cherished associates of his youthful days? Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? – And why is it that, among the swarming myriads of our population, thousands and tens of thousands among us, abstaining, under the dictate of religious principle, from the commemoration of that birth-day of Him, who brought life and immortality to light, yet unite with all their brethren of this community, year after year, in celebrating this, the birth-day of the nation? "Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the corner stone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity, and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of the prophecies, announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Savior and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets six hundred years before? "Cast your eyes backwards upon the progress of time, sixty-one years from this day; and in the midst of the horrors and desolations of civil war, you behold an assembly of Planters, Shopkeepers and Lawyers, the Representatives of the People of thirteen English Colonies in North America, sitting in the City of Philadelphia. These fifty-five men, on that day, unanimously adopt and publish to the world, a state paper under the simple title of 'A DECLARATION.' " |
Embassy of the United States of America ![]() "For more than half a century, during which kingdoms and empires have fallen, this Union has stood unshaken. The patriots who formed it have long since descended to the grave; yet still it remains, the proudest monument to their memory." - Zachary Taylor | |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · American Political News and Domestic Affairs · Next Topic » |







2:45 PM Jul 11