In 1824 General Marquis de Lafayette returned to America at age 67 to see for himself the freedoms of America that he fought along side General Washington to secure. Lafayette was a Frenchman who served in the Continental Army with honor during the American Revolutionary War, and was now returning to America as a hero. During the war, Lafayette provided both leadership and helped to secure vital resources from France. He was wounded in battle but fought on and earned his place in the hearts of Americans at the Battle of Yorktown. After the war, Lafayette returned to France and rejoined the French army and was instrumental in arranging trade agreements with the American ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson. The General had become a hero of two worlds, and upon his return to the United States, he seemed larger than life. Huge crowds met him wherever he went. Upon his arrival in New York, it was estimated that fifty thousand people were waiting at the dock to catch a glimpse of the Revolutionary War hero. From New York, Lafayette travelled to Boston, where the crowds donned white ribbons called "Lafayette ribbons" and treated him to "Lafayette receptions". He dined with the Governor of Massachusetts and spoke at the State House. From Bunker Hill where Lafayette sang praises of the fallen General Warren, Lafayette travelled to Quincy and visited with his old friend and retired statesman, former president John Adams. Harvard, West Point, Philadelphia, Fort McHenry were all stops on his tour. He was given a hero's welcome throughout the land, or as President James Monroe put it, a sentiment of gratitude has "manifested in his favor throughout every portion of our Union, and affectionate invitations have been given him to extend his visits to them.
On December 10th, President Monroe delivered his State of the Union address to Congress, where he wrote at length about Lafayette's visit. The invitation was sent sometime ago, and finally in the summer of 1824, Marquis de Lafayette arrived in New York where he was "received with the warmth of affection and gratitude to which his very important and disinterested services and sacrifices in our Revolutionary struggle so eminently entitled him". Monroe wrote about his "rendezvous" to various parts of the country where "the whole population" would come out to greet him. His visit was not just a visit of some distant hero, but as Monroe described it, it was a time of reflection for the whole country. In 1824, there was not one living soul who did not have some relative who took part in the struggle for independence, and when Lafayette spoke, it touched everyone in a personal way.
"In conformity with a resolution of Congress of the last session, an invitation was given to General Lafayette to visit the United States, with an assurance that a ship of war should attend at any port of France which he might designate, to receive and convey him across the Atlantic, whenever it might be convenient for him to sail. He declined the offer of the public ship from motives of delicacy, but assured me that he had long intended and would certainly visit our Union in the course of the present year.
In August last he arrived at New York, where he was received with the warmth of affection and gratitude to which his very important and disinterested services and sacrifices in our Revolutionary struggle so eminently entitled him. A corresponding sentiment has since been manifested in his favor throughout every portion of our Union, and affectionate invitations have been given him to extend his visits to them. To these he has yielded all the accommodation in his power. At every designated point of rendezvous the whole population of the neighboring country has been assembled to greet him, among whom it has excited in a peculiar manner the sensibility of all to behold the surviving members of our Revolutionary contest, civil and military, who had shared with him in the toils and dangers of the war, many of them in a decrepit state. A more interesting spectacle, it is believed, was never witnessed, because none could be founded on purer principles, none proceed from higher or more disinterested motives. That the feelings of those who had fought and bled with him in a common cause should have been much excited was natural.
There are, however, circumstances attending these interviews which pervaded the whole community and touched the breasts of every age, even the youngest among us. There was not an individual present who had not some relative who had not partaken in those scenes, nor an infant who had not heard the relation of them. But the circumstance which was most sensibly felt, and which his presence brought forcibly to the recollection of all, was the great cause in which we were engaged and the blessings which we have derived from our success in it.
The struggle was for independence and liberty, public and personal, and in this we succeeded. The meeting with one who had borne so distinguished a part in that great struggle, and from such lofty and disinterested motives, could not fail to affect profoundly every individual and of every age. It is natural that we should all take a deep interest in his future welfare, as we do. His high claims on our Union are felt, and the sentiment universal that they should be met in a generous spirit."
President Monroe finished off with an invitation to Congress to make some "provision may be made and tendered to him which shall correspond with the sentiments and be worthy the character of the American people." In other words, President Monroe wanted Congress to do something very special for the General, something that would express the importance of his "very important services, losses, and sacrifices"
"Under these impressions I invite your attention to the subject, with a view that, regarding his very important services, losses, and sacrifices, a provision may be made and tendered to him which shall correspond with the sentiments and be worthy the character of the American people."Just three days later, On December 10, 1824 Lafayette was provided a welcome reception on House floor of the capital with remarks from the Speaker of the House Henry Clay. The occasion was so momentous, that women were granted dispensation to be allowed on the House floor. Here are the words of Speaker Henry Clay to welcome Lafayette as the guest of the nation.
General:
The House of Representatives of the United States impelled alike by its own feelings, and by those of the American people, could not have assigned me a more gratifying duty than that of being its organ to present 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 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, 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 with this House entertains 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 desperation 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 split in the same 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! Everywhere 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 that is in the sentiment of continued devotion to liberty, and of ardent affection and profound gratitude of 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 countless millions who are destined to inhabit this continent, to the latest posterity.
Congress also gave General Lafayette a large land grant of land consisting of an entire township of 6 miles by 6 miles of what is now Northeast Tallahassee.
References
Presidency.ucsb.edu. (2017). James Monroe: Eighth Annual Message. [online] Available at: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29466 [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].
Inskeep, S. (2015). Jacksonland. Penguin Publishing Group. pgs 133-140
Knapp, E. and French, J. (1925). The speech for special occasions. New York: The Macmillan Co. pgs 215-218
Schillerinstitute.org. (2017). Lafayette's Visit to the United States, 1824-1825. [online] Available at: http://www.schillerinstitute.org/educ/hist/lafayette.html [Accessed 29 Nov. 2017].
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