"If we were to legislate upon our sympathies--yet more I will admit--if
we were to yield to that sense of just and grateful remuneration which
presses itself upon every man's heart, there would be scarcely a limit
for our bounty. The whole exchequer could not answer the demand. To the
patriotism, the courage, and the sacrifices of the people of that day, we
owe, under Providence, all that we now most highly prize, and what we
shall transmit to our children as the richest legacy they can inherit.
The War of the Revolution, it has been justly remarked, was not a war of
armies merely--it was the war of nearly a whole people, and such a people
as the world had never before seen, in a death struggle for liberty.
"The losses, sacrifices, and sufferings of that period were common to all
classes and conditions of life. Those who remained at home suffered
hardly less than those who entered upon the active strife. The aged
father and another underwent not less than the son, who would have been
the comfort and stay of their declining years, now called to perform a
yet higher duty--to follow the standard of his bleeding country. The
young mother, with her helpless children, excites not less deeply our
sympathies, contending with want, and dragging out years of weary and
toilsome days and anxious nights, than the husband in the field,
following the fortunes of our arms without the proper habiliments to
protect his person, or the requisite sustenance to support his strength.
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