Fellow-citizens! Let us seize this occasion to renew to each other our vows
of allegiance and devotion to the American Union, and let us recognize In
our common title to the name and fame of Washington, and, in our common
veneration for his example and his advice, the all-sufficient centripetal
power, which shall hold the thick clustering stars of our confederacy in
one glorious constellation forever! Let the column which we are about to
construct, be at once a pledge and an emblem of perpetual union! Let the
foundations be laid, let the superstructure be built up and cemented, let
each stone be raised and reverted, In a spirit of national brotherhood! And
may the earliest ray of the rising sun--till that sun shall set to rise no
more--draw forth from it dally, as from the fabled statue of antiquity, a
strain of national harmony, which shall strike a responsive chord in every
heart throughout the Republic!

Proceed, then, fellow-citizens, with the work for which you have assembled.
Lay the corner-stone of a monument which shall adequately bespeak the
gratitude of the whole American people to the Illustrious Father of his
country! Build it to the skies, you cannot outreach the loftiness of his
principles! Found it upon the massive and eternal rock, you cannot make it
more enduring than his fame! Construct it of the peerless Parian marble,
you cannot make it purer than his life! Exhaust upon it the rules and
principles of ancient and modern art, you cannot make it more
proportionate than his character!

But let not your homage to his memory end here. Think not to transfer to a
tablet or a column the tribute which is due from yourselves. Just honor to
Washington can only be rendered by observing his precepts and imitating his
example. He has built his own monument. We and those who come after us, in
successive generations, are its appointed, its privileged guardians.