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dence. On that day the Radical Congress of the Republic was gratefully remembered by the vast assembly within Mechanics' Institute. On that interesting occasion; after the reading of the Declaration of Independence, by H. C. Dibble, Esq., the Rev. J. B. Smith, an intelligent colored man from Boston, Mass., spoke as follows:

"FELLOW CITIZENS:-It becomes my pleasant duty to read to you, as next in order, another very commendable document a fit appendage of the one to which you have just listened with so much interest and pleasure; an instrument second in importance to no other ever promulgated by any Government. It imparts to the Fourth of July a character for honesty, eartnestness, and sincerity that it never enjoyed before, and makes it something more than a mere gala day for pompous declaimers and arrogant rhetoricians. To the five millions of colored people in this country the declaration of independence has a significance that it never possessed before.

“We will ever hold in grateful remembrance the noble President who issued it; we honor the Congress who had the justice to ratify it, and the people who have the will and the determination to observe and maintain it. I refer to the emancipation proclamation of President Lincoln."

After the reading of the emancipation proclamation, an address was delivered by J. R. G. Pilkin, from which we quote the following:

"One year ago to-day I stood as now within these walls and assisted in a commemoration welcome to every American citizen. The same declaration that you have

heard this morning, was then as reverently read, and with glad pulses we at last retired to our homes. But the month that dawned with such wholesome cheer closed with a sunset of fearful crimson; our July is henceforth the solemn memory of both a benediction and a scar. Friends who sat upon this platform and upon these seats before me, communed then for the last time with us in this annual assemblage. They are today in their graves, dear to us by the fidelity of their lives, and still dearer by the brutality of their sacrifice. Yet the shot and stab of the assassin insured no lasting triumph except for those that fell-the valor of the one and the infamy of the other are historic.

"But these martyrs were not all who last year crossed yonder threshold for the last time. There were likewise hundreds of men from whose wrists the gyves had been smitten off-men, who sat here with hearts to aspire for and hands to defend our sacred liberties, and yet with brains to wonder that their skin was a bar to an equal enjoyment of them. To-day I see many of their faces again, but they have entered this hall new and different men-no longer freedmen but freemen, equal with us in all things—a stern, loyal impulse in their souls, and a citizen's ballot within their hands.

"Few local events ever so aroused the American people as the wanton massacre of July 30, 1866, and wrought so material a result. It became the cardinal text in the campaign last autumn of a score of the States of this Union-the angry admonition of each loyal constituency to its representative-the accepted symptom of a murderous rebel tempter, which that representative should resent through his measure of reconstruction,

and I am by no means extravagant when I say that our national Congress caught the dying whisper of our Dostie, 'Let the good work go on,' and dipping its pen in the mingled blood of black men and white shed upon this spot, inscribed his solemn caution upon its legislative page, and beneath it the bold and glorious decree of enfranchisement !

"We have gathered here as honest democrats, to grasp like true brethren the hands of all that are not recreant to a freeman's faith, and to thank God that we all may now render our first public acknowledgment that four millions of new freemen share with us henceforth in the title to our national Declaration of Independence."

On the 30th of July, 1867, a funeral ceremony in memory of the victims of July 30th, 1866, was observed at Mechanics' Institute. The oration on that occasion was delivered by Rufus Waples, Esq., from which we quote:

"This is the first anniversary funeral of the patriots massacred here on the 30th of July, 1866, the day memorable as the culminating point of the lawless policy of him who had sworn to enforce the laws.

"Within this hall, one year ago this day, sat an assembly of citizens, peaceably convened and peaceably inclined, gathered together for a lawful, patriotic and praiseworthy purpose. Suddenly they were surrounded and attacked by armed enemies of law, order and liberty; suddenly they were made the victims of preconcerted violence, and these walls resounded with the report of firearms, the heavy stroke of the bludgeons, the fall of the dead, the agonizing shrieks and groans of

the wounded and dying. The floor ran blood. The prayers and expostulations of the innocent sufferers. were drowned amid the oaths and execrations of the assailants. In vain was raised the flag of truce; the minister of peace who bore it was ruthlessly shot down with the white emblem in his hand. In vain was exhibited the banner of the country; it only excited its. enemies to deeper hate. The stunned, bleeding and apparently lifeless bodies of respectable and virtuous citizens kicked and spat upon by traitors-the bodie of the wounded thrown roughly into carts with the dying and dead, and hauled off to hospitals and graves; the survivors of the carnage ruthlessly conveyed amid the jeers and mocking, the hisses and curses of crowds, to a filthy dungeon with the intent that they should be massacred at night according to the programme of the plotters. You remember it all; you will forget it never.

"Here fell the brave young Victor Lacroix, cut from head to foot, butchered and mutilated in the most shocking and barbarous manner. He had served with honor and distinction upon the field fighting for liberty and law, but his bright career of glory was thus suddenly arrested, and

"Now lies he there,

Marred, as you see, by traitors.'

"Here fell Jean Baptiste, Henry Berquier, as faithful a citizen, as loyal a heart, as the country could boast, victimized by enemies of the Government just because he was faithful and loyal. He, too, had proved upon the field his devotion to the flag-that flag which, in the hands of a recreant Executive, had failed to protect him.

"Captain Loup, who had also faithfully served in the national army and had passed through the fiery ordeal unscathed, fell a victim to a dastardly stab in the back. He was a good officer, possessing the confidence of his superiors, and ever faithful to the cause of freedom.

"Telesphore Auguste and Daley Duval, who had served three years in the 1st National Guards, and who had been honorably discharged, were here, in this hall, shot down like dogs, and then carted away and buried before their relatives and friends had had the poor satisfaction of looking upon their mangled remains.

"Peace to the ashes of the brave soldiers! The living will keep green the memory of Auguste and Duval, Berquier, Loup, and Victor Lacroix. Let their names be embalmed in the pulsating blood of your living hearts; let their deeds be written in letters of gold upon the scroll of fame! Rest, noble champions of liberty! Yes

"On fame's eternal camping ground
Your martial tents are spread,
And glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.”

"More than a hundred victims of the massacre lingered in the Marine Hospital, wounded in almost every conceivable way, and the hearse was there a daily visitor. There the Rev. Dr. Horton died, going down with the sun in the stillness of a beautiful Sabbath evening. He was a gentleman of education and irreproachable character, a preacher of the gospel of peace to his fellow-men. Like his blessed Master he fell the victim of a mob. He had, by invitation, invoked

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