Our Pilgrim's Heritage
American statesman and orator Daniel Webster delivered his
famous “Plymouth Oration” in 1820 on the 200th anniversary
of the Pilgrim’s arrival at Plymouth Rock. Webster, who served
as a U.S. representative, senator, and secretary of state for
three presidents had a political career spanning four decades
and is considered one of America’s greatest orators. Excerpts
from his speech follow.We have come to this Rock, to record here our homage for our Pilgrim Fathers; our sympathy in their sufferings; our gratitude for their labours; our admiration of their virtues; our veneration for their piety; and our attachment to those principles of civil and religious liberty, which they encountered the dangers of the ocean, the storms of heaven, the violence of savages, disease, exile, and famine, to enjoy and to establish.... There is a local feeling, connected with this occasion, too strong to be resisted; a sort of genius of the place, which inspires and awes us. We feel that we are on the spot, where the first scene of our history was laid; where the hearths and altars of New- England were first placed; where Christianity, and civilization, and letters made their first lodgment, in a vast extent of country, covered with a wilderness, and peopled by roving barbarians.... __________________________________________________________ Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian Religion. ______________________________________________________________ [O]ur ancestors have founded their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits. Living under the heavenly light of revelation, they hoped to find all the social dispositions, all the duties which men owe to each other, and to society, enforced and performed. Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens. Our fathers came here to enjoy their religion free and unmolested; and, at the end of two centuries, there is nothing upon which we can pronounce more confidently, nothing of which we can express a more deep and earnest conviction, than of the inestimable importance of that religion to man, both in regard to this life, and that which is to come.... Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian Religion. They journeyed by its light, and laboured in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend this influence still more widely; in the full conviction, that that is the happiest society, which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceable spirit of Christianity.... Advance then, ye future generations! ... We welcome you to the blessings of good government, and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science, and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendant sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting Truth! —Text from Discourse Delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1820, in Commemoration of the First Settlement of New-England, by Daniel Webster, published by Wells and Lilly, 1825. |