AN ORATION, DELIVERED AT WINDHAM CENTRE, GREENE COUNTY, JULY 4, 1859, BY THE LATE COL. WILLIAM A. JACKSON, = OF THE EIGHTEENTH REGIMENT OF NEW-YORK VOLUNTEERS. ALBANY : C. VAN BENTHUYSEN, PRINTER. 1863. N.Y., 2011 ORATION. IT has been said, Fellow-citizens, that as a nation, we have no history. But when I read of the enterprize, the courage, the determination which peculiarly characterize the colonization of our land; and when to-day, in looking about me, I perceive the wonderful results that have been accomplished since the Saxon arm began the conflict with primeval nature on our own shores, I am persuaded that no other chapter in the history of the world presents so splendid a phase of human development. Our history does not offer the reader the eventful succession of a long and brilliant monarchy it has no feudal and chivalric period, no grand armada, no Waterloo; but it records the patient endurance, the heroic suffering, the God-given energy and will which have upreared a mighty empire. It records the story of a revolution, which marked a new era in the progress of the race; it writes, on the page of heroes, the names of thousands whose brave hearts beat for humanity. |