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Sixty or eighty thousand of
our most useful citizens are there, and are entitled to such
protection from the government as their case requires."
How different this compact directness from the tremendous fulmination
of the Dartmouth junior, who said:--
"Columbia stoops not to tyrants; her spirit will never
cringe to France; neither a supercilious, five-headed
Directory nor the gasconading pilgrim of Egypt will ever
dictate terms to sovereign America. The thunder of our
cannon shall insure the performance of our treaties, and
fulminate destruction on Frenchmen, till the ocean is
crimsoned with blood and gorged with pirates!"
The Fourth-of-July oration, which afterwards fell into some disrepute,
had great importance in the earlier years of the Republic, when
Revolutionary times and perils were fresh in the recollection of the
people. The custom arose of assigning this duty to young men covetous
of distinction, and this led in time to the flighty rhetoric which
made sounding emptiness and a Fourth-of-July oration synonymous terms.


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