By an unidentified mode of transmission Bangs had sent TJ his work entitled An Oration pronounced at Springfield, Mass. on the Fourth of July, 1823, being the Forty Seventh Anniversary of the declaration of American Independence (Springfield, 1823), which expressed the following sentiments: “there is one name which it has been my pride, upon occasions like the present, to repeat before my fellow citizens. Your voices will respond to mine when I utter the name of Jefferson. Can you hear him mentioned without mingled emotions, of reverence for the greatness and goodness of his character, and of indignation at the calumny which has assailed him? When I reflect, that his life will adorn the page of American history, I feel proud for my country that she can boast of such a man. But when I consider that on the same page will be recorded the history of his enemies, that it will tell to the world the shameful story of their ingratitude—how vindictively they pursued him, not only through his public career, but into the bosom of his family, and the retirement of his closet; how they misrepresented all his deeds, and words, and thoughts; how industriously they labored in the work of his destruction, to blast his reputation, to destroy his influence, to undermine the monument of glory which he was building for the nation, I blush that so indelible a stain must rest upon any of my countrymen” (pp. 12–3).