Excerpt from An Oration Delivered at Portchester, in the Town of Rye, County of Westchester, on the Fourth Day of July, 1865 Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Committee, Ladies and Gentlemen of Rye: I thank you for the honor of being permitted to appear before this public assemblage; but I deeply regret that since I received your kind invitation, so brief space has been allowed me, adequately to perform my duty. The occasion is one of absorbing interest. It is a crowning period in our history. In the present hour the transactions of centuries seem to culminate. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.