purchase. At their hands the children of the desert had no
cause of complaint. On the great day of retribution, what
thousands, what millions of the American race will appear at
the bar of judgment to arraign their European invading
conquerors! Let us humbly hope that the fathers of the
Plymouth Colony will then appear in the whiteness of
innocence. Let us indulge in the belief that they will not only
be free from all accusation of injustice to these unfortunate
sons of nature, but that the testimonials of their acts of
kindness and benevolence toward them will plead the cause of
their virtues, as they are now authenticated by the record of
history upon earth.

Religious discord has lost her sting; the cumbrous weapons
of theological warfare are antiquated; the field of politics
supplies the alchemists of our times with materials of more
fatal explosion, and the butchers of mankind no longer travel to
another world for instruments of cruelty and destruction. Our
age is too enlightened to contend upon topics which concern
only the interests of eternity; the men who hold in proper
contempt all controversies about trifles, except such as inflame
their own passions, have made it a commonplace censure
against your ancestors, that their zeal was enkindled by
subjects of trivial importance; and that however aggrieved by
the intolerance of others, they were alike intolerant themselves.
Against these objections, your candid judgment will not require
an unqualified justification; but your respect and gratitude for
the founders of the State may boldly claim an ample apology.
The original grounds of their separation from the Church of
England were not objects of a magnitude to dissolve the bonds