when Gen. Stark, of Bennington memory, was captured by savages on the
head waters of the Kennebec, he was subsequently taken by them to
Albnny {sic} where they went to sell furs, and again led away a
captive, without interference on the part of the inhabitants of that
neighboring colony to demand or obtain his release. United as we now
are, were a citizen of the United States, as an act of hostility to
our country, imprisoned or slain in any quarter of the world, whether
on land or sea, the people of each and every State of the Union, with
one heart, and with one voice, would demand redress, and woe be to him
against whom a brother's blood cried to us from the ground. Such is
the fruit of the wisdom and the justice with which our fathers bound
contending colonies into confederation and blended different habits
and rival interests into a harmonious whole, so that shoulder to
shoulder they entered on the trial of the revolution, step with step
trod its thorny paths until they reached the height of national
independence and founded the constitutional representative liberty,
which is our birthright.

When the mother country entered upon her career of oppression, in
disregard of chartered and constitutional rights, our forefathers did
not stop to measure the exact weight of the burden, or to ask whether
the pressure bore most upon this colony or upon that, but saw in it
the infraction of a great principle, the denial of a common right, in
defence of which they made common cause; Massachusetts, Virginia and
South Carolina vieing with each other as to who should be foremost in
the struggle, where the penalty of failure would be a dishonorable
grave.

Tempered by the trials and sacrifices of the revolution, dignified by
its noble purposes, elevated by its brilliant triumphs, endeared to