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whole American people to the illustrious Father of his country! Build it to the skies; you cannot outreach the loftiness of his principles! Found it upon the massive and eternal rock; you cannot make it more enduring than his fame! Construct it of the peerless Parian marble; you cannot make it purer than his life! Exhaust upon it the rules and principles of ancient and of modern art; you cannot make it more proportionate than his character!
But let not your homage to his memory end here. Think not to transfer to a tablet or a column, the tribute which is due from yourselves. Just honor to Washington can only be rendered by observing his precepts and imitating his example. Similitudine decoremus. He has built his own monument. We, and those who come after us in successive generations, are its appointed, its privileged guardians. This wide-spread Republic is the true monument to Washington. Maintain its Independence. Uphold its Constitution. Preserve its Union. Defend its Liberty. Let it stand before the world in all its original strength and beauty, securing peace, order, equality, and freedom to all within its boundaries, and shedding light and hope and joy upon the pathway of human liberty throughout the world; and Washington needs no other monument. Other structures may fitly testify our veneration for him; this, this alone, can adequately illustrate his services to mankind.
Nor does he need even this. The Republic may perish; the wide arch of our ranged Union may fall; star by star its glories may expire; stone after stone its columns
