SPEECH DELIVERED AT BOSTON, APRIL 13, 1859, AT A FESTIVAL ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF JEFFERSON'S BIRTHDAY.
T is a distinguished honor to be permitted to preside on a festive occasion, when the virtues and political principles of Thomas Jefferson are remembered.
For this honor, I am indebted to the undeserved partiality of the committee who have invited and organized this gathering, that here, within the limits. of the Commonwealth which first resisted British aggression, we may acknowledge our obligations to the men and the principles of a sister republic in the great struggle for liberty in America.
Public justice, in a large sense, is often slow, but always sure; and, on the hundred and sixteenth anniversary day of the birth of Jefferson, we encourage our faith in humanity by the reflection, that his principles, and the purity of his private and official life, have been relieved from the rancor and obloquy of personal strifes; and that he now stands the chosen leader of a majority of the people of the nation, who either accept his principles, or claim that he would, if living, accept theirs.