Upon this speech, followed by a distinct motion to that effect, Hamilton and Madison, and Rufus King and Roger Sherman, and the Morrises of Pennsylvania, and the Pinckneys of South Carolina, and the rest of that august assembly, with Washington at their head, on the seventeenth day of September, 1787, subscribed their names to the Constitution under which we live. And Mr. Madison tells us, that whilst the last members were signing it, Dr. Franklin, looking towards the president's chair, at the back of which an image of the sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. "I have," said he, "often and often in the course of the session, and of the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun."

Yes, venerated sage, privileged to live on

yes, that was, indeed, a rising sun," coming forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoicing as a giant to run his course." And a glorious course he has run, enlightening and illuminating, not our own land only, but every land on the wide surface of the earth," and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." God, in his infinite mercy, grant that by no failure of his blessing or of our prayers, of his grace or of our gratitude, of his protection or of our patriotism, that sun may be seen, while it has yet hardly entered on its meridian pathway, shooting madly from its sphere and hastening to go down in blackness or in blood, leaving the world in darkness and freedom in despair! And may the visible presence of the GREAT BOSTONIAN, restored once more to our sight, by something more than a fortunate coincidence, in this hour of our country's peril, serve not merely to ornament our streets, or to commemorate his services, or even to signalize our own gratitude, but to impress afresh, day by day, and hour by hour, upon the hearts of every man and woman and child who shall gaze upon it, a deeper sense of the value of that

Liberty, that Independence, that Union, and that Constitution, for all of which he was so early, so constant, and so successful a laborer!

Fellow-citizens, the statue which has now received your reiterated acclamations owes its origin to the mechanics of Boston, and especially to the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association. Or, if any fortunate word of another may be remembered as having suggested it, that word was uttered in their service, and by one who is proud to be counted among the honorary members of their fraternity. The merchants and business men of our city, members of the learned professions, and great numbers of all classes of the community, came nobly to their aid, and in various sums, large and small, contributed to the cost of the work. Honor and thanks to them all!

But honor and thanks this day, especially, to the gifted native artist, Richard S. Greenough, who has so admirably conceived the character, and so exquisitely wrought out the design, committed to him!

Honor, too, to Mr. Ames, and the skilful mechanics of the foundry at Chicopee, by whom it has been so successfully and brilliantly cast! Nor let the Sanborns and Carews be forgotten, by whom the massive granite has been hewn, and the native verd antique so beautifully shaped and polished.

It only remains for me, fellow-citizens, as chairman of the subcommittee under whose immediate direction the statue has been designed and executed, a service in the discharge of which I acknowledge an especial obligation to the President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and Secretary of the Mechanic Association, and to Mr. John H. Thorndike and Mr. John Cowdin among its active members; to those eminent mechanics, inventors, and designers, Blanchard, Tufts, Smith, and Hooper;— to Dr. Jacob Bigelow, President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; to Mr. Prescott, the historian; to Mr. Henry Greenough, the architect, to whom we are indebted for the design of the pedestal; to Mr. Thomas G. Appleton and Mr. Epes Sargent, cherished friends of art and of artists, one of them absent to-day, but not forgotten; to Edward Everett and Jared Sparks,

whose names are so honorably and indissolubly associated with the noblest illustration of both Franklin and Washington; to David Sears, among the living, and to Abbott Lawrence, among the lamented dead, whose liberal and enlightened patronage of every good work will be always fresh in the remembrance of every true Bostonian; - it only remains for me, as the organ of a committee thus composed and thus aided, to deliver up the finished work to my excellent friend, Mr. Frederic W. Lincoln, Jr., who, as Chairman of the General Committee, after the ode of welcome, written by our Boston printer-poet, James T. Fields, shall have been sung by the children of the schools, will designate the disposition of the statue which has been finally agreed upon in behalf of the subscribers.

Sir, to you, as President of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, and as Chairman, ex-officio, of the Committee of Fifty appointed under their auspices, — yourself, I am glad at this hour to remember, a direct and worthy descendant of that patriot mechanic of the revolution, PAUL REVERE - I now present the work which your association intrusted to our charge, hoping that it may not be counted unworthy to commemorate the great forerunner and exemplar of those intelligent and patriotic Boston mechanics, who have been for so many years among the proudest ornaments and best defenders of our beloved city, and to whom we so confidently look, not merely to promote and build up its material interests, but to sustain and advance its moral, religious charitable, and civil institutions, in all time to come!

THE PRESIDENTIAL QUESTION.

A SPEECH MADE IN FANEUIL HALL, OCTOBER 24, 1856.

I AM glad to perceive, fellow-citizens, by the unmistakable signs of this occasion, that the Whigs of Boston and its vicinity are not yet tired of ratifying the nominations of that noble National Convention at Baltimore, held on the anniversary of the very day on which the Constitution of the United States was adopted and signed by its framers, and on which, too, by not casual coincidence, that never-to-be-forgotten Farewell Address was dated and promulgated by its immortal author. I am glad to perceive that the spirit which animated that Convention, and dictated those nominations, and which peculiarly belongs to that day, is still unextinguished in Faneuil Hall, and that, within this temple and on these altars, wherever else it may have grown dim or gone out, the old Whig fire will be watched and fed and fanned and kept bright and burning to the last, with something of the fidelity and devotion which tended and guarded the vestal flame of antiquity. I rejoice that there is so goodly a number of those here to-night who are not yet ready to exchange its pure and genial radiance for any baleful blue lights of Northern sectionalism, or for any delusive will-of-the-wisp from the Dismal Swamp. This is the third and last time of asking, I believe; and we have as yet heard no just cause or impediment why the old Whig party - without any abandonment of its principles or its organization, and without any impressment or proscription of such as may prefer a different course-should not be united with a branch of the young American party in supporting for the Presidency as sound a Whig and as true an American as MILLARD FILLMORE.

And now, my friends, most willingly would I stop here. Most willingly would I have been excused from addressing you further on this occasion, or at all. Retired for the last four or five years from all political service and with not a wish to return to it; taking a widely different view of public affairs, too, from so many of those with whom I have been associated in other years, and with whom I would gladly be associated again, and freely acknowledging that the complications and perplexities of the times afford ample room for all the doubts and disagreements which have driven so many honest minds on every side in so many different directions; recognizing, moreover, as I distinctly do, a growing uncongeniality and almost incompatibility between my health, tastes, and habits of life, and the contentions and strifes of the political arena; in all these views, I had honestly hoped to be exempted from any thing more than that unequivocal definition of my position, which I have long ago given, and which nothing has occurred to modify. I could not altogether resist, however, the solicitations of friends to make a few opening remarks this evening, before the distinguished gentleman from New York shall commence his address; and I dare say that, before I take my seat, others will be as glad as myself in knowing, that it is positively my last appearance anywhere, on any party stage, during the present campaign, -I should be willing to say for ever.

And, indeed, fellow-citizens, it is no such easy thing for one who thinks as I do, and feels as I do, in regard to the great contest in which we are engaged, to get up a speech which shall be altogether satisfactory either to others or to himself. I hope I am not too much given to the violation of the tenth commandment, either in any of its express or implied applications, but I will confess that I cannot help sometimes envying the orators of the Free Soil party the facility and obviousness of their appeals, and coveting the fertility and availableness of their topics. I have even been almost tempted to flatter myself that I could be an orator, also, if I could find it in my conscientious convictions of propriety or patriotism to employ the materials which they employ in the way in which they employ them, to serve up the same sort of dishes with the same amount and quality of sauce.