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years ago to-day, when we were assembled together here, as now, to celebrate our National Anniversary, I was called up, after the orator of the day, to make a few remarks. And perhaps some, who are here, may remember that, in setting forth a few of the advantages we pilgrims to these shores possess, for a noble national growth and for future superiority; I pointed out among other providential events the fact, that the exile of our fathers from their African homes to America, had given us, their children, at least this one item of compensation, namely, the possession of the Anglo-Saxon tongue; that this language put us in a position which none other on the globe could give us; and that it was impossible to estimate too highly, the prerogatives and the elevation the Almighty has bestowed upon us, in our having as our own, the speech of Chaucer and Shakspeare, of Milton and Wordsworth, of Bacon and Burke, of Franklin and Webster. My remarks were unpremeditated,