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Why have we assembled here to-day? What means this immense crowd around us? For what, beneath a July sun, on this anniversary of the birth-day of a nation, has this vast multitude come up, as came Israel of old to the dedication of the Temple of the Lord?

We are here to perform a duty, which, were it possible, twenty millions of people would, without a whisper of dissent, assemble here to-day to witness, for it would be but the homage due to the memory of one, whose name shall live in every American bosom as long as our great and glorious Union shall exist.

We are about to lay the foundation stone of a National Monument, here, in the city that bears his name, at this seat of the General Government, which his exertions established, to be consecrated to the memory of

"The world—the whole civilized world," says a most worthy and eloquent writer, in an address on the Masonic character of Washington, "bows with admiration to that name as the exponent of all that is great in patriotism and lovely in public example. The furthest nations of the earth take up praise when that name is syllabled in their ear, as if his virtue were their inheritance. The broadest empires of Europe, while they shut out the light of republican truths, acknowledge the lustre which our country's father has thrown around the name of ; and the little republic of San Marino, situated above the clouds that play about the mid-height of Mount Urbino—a republic too poor to have jewels—too small to boast of a treasury—she cherishes, among the