MR ADAMS'S ORATION.

John Quincy Adams's Oration delivered at Newburyport on the late Fourth of July, has been published in a pamphlet form. The following is an extract from it:-

"Friends and fellow citizens! I speak to you with the voice as of one risen from the dead. Were I now as shortly must be, cold in my grave, and could the sepulchre unbar its gates, and open to men passage to this desk, devoted to the worship of Almighty God, I would repeat the question with which this discourse was introduced:- "Why are you assembled in this place?"- and one of you would answer me for all,- Because the Declaration of Independence, with the voice of an angel from Heaven, "put to mouth the sounding alchemy," and proclaimed universal emancipation upon earth! It is not the separation of your fathers from their kindred race beyond the Atlantic tide.- It is not the Union of thirteen British Colonies into one People and the entrance of that People upon the theatre, where kingdoms, and empires, and nations are the persons of the drama.- It is not that this is the day of the North American Union, the last and noblest offspring of time. It is that the first words uttered by the Genius of our Country, in announcing his existence to the world of mankind, was, -Freedom to the slave! Liberty to the captives! Redemption! redemption forever to the race of man, from the yoke of oppression! It is not the work of a day; it is not the consummation of a century, that we are assembled to commemmorate. It is the emancipation of our race. It is the emancipation of man from the thraldom of man!"
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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There is currently no available "Beginner" label. The following is the default level label: John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), President of the United States from 1825-1829, was elected to the House of Representatives in 1830. In January, 1837, he presented petitions for the abolition of slavery to the House, which caused quite a debate. In the same year, he delivered an address at Newburyport, Massachusetts, on the Fourth of July stating that the Declaration of Independence proclaimed universal emancipation and freedom for slaves. The Gazette & Mercury was the newspaper in Greenfield, Massachusetts, from June 27, 1837 to July 13, 1841, when it changed its name to the Gazette & Courier.

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