Excerpt from An Address Delivered at Oregon, Missouri

WE read that after the children of Israel had escaped from the most galling bondage in Egypt, and after the Lord of hosts had, triumphed gloriously over those who despised the sentiment that all men are created free and equal, and the horse and rider had been thrown into the sea, and after right had pre vailed over might in the very morning of the world, and those who had escaped from the thraldom of the Egyptian task masters had sung their songs of joy on the banks of their deliverance, the great law giver Moses received from the Deity, not only that higher law upon which is based the Christian's faith, but also that code which all civilized nations have directly, or indirectly recognized as the one by which the world can be governed. It was then that the command which I have read to you, came pure and spotless from the mouth of God himself, when he spoke to Moses from amidst the fire and smoke and awful th unders of Sinai, commanding him to hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land, and unto all the inhabitants thereof.

We in this age of the world fully recognise the fact that the principle of this command has its seat and center in the mind of the Deity, and its mission is the harmony of the universe, and because it became known of men as being thewill of God, you and I, together with the people of this whole land, in obedience to what has become a time honored custom, not only here but wherever may be found Americans, and wherever floats the flag of the free, and also in obedience to a sense of patriotic duty, quit the field and the anvil, the workshop and the counter, the busy marts of commerce and the flaming forge, the noise and bustle and heat of the city, as well as the quiet of the country home, to assemble around the altars of American liberty, and place thereon the oblations of our faith in a government of the people, by the people and for the people, pledging our troth anew to those eternal rights of man proclaimed by the fathers, when they ninety-five years ago to-day hurled in the very face of despotism the immortal declaration We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that to secure those rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

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