Excerpt from An Oration, Delivered Before the Inhabitants of South Boston, on Saturday, July 4, 1835: The Fifty-Ninth Anniversary of American Independence WE have not assembled to celebrate the nativity of an hereditary ruler. We have not been invited to come together to render homage to imperial dignity, nor to commemorate the endurance of a hateful dy nasty. Nor are we called upon by the customs of our fathers to acknowledge on this, or any other day, a dependence on regal authority for the protection Of our civil or religious privileges. A citizen of the United States Of America can alone appreciate the thrilling associations connected with the return of an Anniversary which calls forth a spontaneous feeling Of gratitude to the God Of nations. It is the birth day OF political freedom - the hallowed festival. OF patriots. While unnumbered millions are suffering the de privation of all those peculiar blessings which have their origin in a government completely under the control Of the people, we are in the undisturbed pos session Of all that is valuable to intellectual man. 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.