The house of representatives of the United States, impelled alike
by its own feelings, and by those of the whole American people,
could not have assigned to me a more gratifying duty than that of
presenting to you cordial congratulations upon the occasion of your
recent arrival in the United States, in compliance with the wishes
of Congress, and to assure you of the very high satisfaction which
your presence affords on this early theatre of your glory and renown.
Although but few of the members who compose this body shared with you
in the war of our revolution, all have, from impartial history, or from
faithful tradition, a knowledge of the perils, the sufferings, and the
sacrifices, which you voluntarily encountered, and the signal services,
in America and in Europe, which you performed for an infant, a distant,
and an alien people; and all feel and own the very great extent of the
obligations under which you have placed our country. But the relations
in which you have ever stood to the United States, interesting and
important as they have been, do not constitute the only motive of the
respect and admiration which the house of representatives entertain for
you. Your consistency of character, your uniform devotion to regulated
liberty, in all the vicissitudes of a long and arduous life, also
commands its admiration. During all the recent convulsions of Europe,
amidst, as after the dispersion of, every political storm, the people
of the United States have beheld you, true to your old principles,
firm and erect, cheering and animating with your well-known voice, the
votaries of liberty, its faithful and fearless champion, ready to shed
the last drop of that blood which here you so freely and nobly spilt,
in the same holy cause.
The vain wish has been sometimes indulged, that Providence would
allow the patriot, after death, to return to his country, and to
contemplate the intermediate changes which had taken place; to view
the forests felled, the cities built, the mountains levelled, the
canals cut, the highways constructed, the progress of the arts, the
advancement of learning, and the increase of population. General, your
present visit to the United States is a realization of the consoling
object of that wish. You are in the midst of posterity. Every where,
you must have been struck with the great changes, physical and moral,
which have occurred since you left us. Even this very city, bearing
a venerated name, alike endeared to you and to us, has since emerged
from the forest which then covered its site. In one respect you behold
us unaltered, and this is in the sentiment of continued devotion
to liberty, and of ardent affection and profound gratitude to your
departed friend, the father of his country, and to you, and to your
illustrious associates in the field and in the cabinet, for the
multiplied blessings which surround us, and for the very privilege
of addressing you which I now exercise. This sentiment, now fondly
cherished by more than ten millions of people, will be transmitted,
with unabated vigor, down the tide of time, through the countless
millions who are destined to inhabit this continent, to the latest
posterity.
[After the above address, La Fayette rose, and in a tone
influenced by powerful feeling, made an eloquent reply.]