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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030454981 
 
LECTURES 
 
 ON THE 
 
 CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 BEFORE THE LAW CLASS OF 
 MERCER UNIVERSITY 
 
 BY 
 
 EMORY SPEER 
 
 Professor of Constitutional Law and Judge U. S. Court 
 Southern District of Georgia 
 
 MACON GEORGIA 
 
 THE J. W. BURKE COMPANY 
 
 1897 
 
 ! fH / 
 
Copyright, 1897, by 
 BMORY SPEBR. 
 
 MACON, GA. 
 
 
 C/Wy 
 
TO MY FATHER, 
 
 EUSTACE W. SPEER, D. D., 
 AN exbm:pi,ar op thb christian patriot, who bari,y 
 
 TAUGHT HIS CHII,DREN THAT I<OVE OP OUR COMMON 
 
 COUNTRY HE INHERITED FROM PATRIOT 
 
 SIRES, THIS I,ITTI,E VOI,UME IS 
 
 GRATEFUI,I,Y AND 1,0V- 
 
 INGLY INSCRIBED. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 These ledlures introdudlory to the explanation of 
 the Constitution, as made to the I^aw students of Mercer 
 University, are printed in response to many requests 
 for their publication in this form, especially from young 
 men. They were printed as they were delivered, and 
 given wide publicity by the Macon Telegraph. The 
 evident interest manifested in the historical incidents 
 they detail, must be ascribed in large part to this adlion 
 of that widely read journal. It is, however, gratifying 
 to believe also, that, after many formidable assaults and 
 misguiding interpretations, from time to time aimed 
 at the indispensable and inherent powers of the noble 
 instrument to which they relate, its established efficacy 
 for all the essentials of National Government, has won 
 for it lasting popular confidence and the anxious desire 
 of enlightened Americans to master its principles. 
 Indeed, there is now known of all men in all sedlions 
 of our country the priceless value of the truth expressed 
 by Washington in his Farewell Address, "The Union 
 is the edifice of our real independence, the support of 
 
our tranquility at home, -our peace abroad, our pros- 
 perity, our safety and the very liberty, which we so 
 highly prize, that for this Union we should cherish a 
 cordial, habitual, immovable attachment and should 
 discountenance whatever may suggest even a suspicion 
 that it can in any event be abandoned. ' ' The author, 
 engaged for nearly thirteen years with judicial duties 
 largely involving the enforcement of the National laws 
 among Southern people, is enabled to certify that this 
 truth is as dear to the intelligent Southern men of 
 to-day, as to Hamilton, the brilliant projector of the 
 Constitution ; to Madison, its incomparable advocate ; 
 to Marshall, its great expounder, and to the illustrious 
 Washington himself. 
 
 In one of these ledtures reference was made to the 
 importance of reviving in the Southern States the 
 celebration of Independence day. Shortly after its 
 publication the author was invited by the Jefferson 
 Club of Augusta, Ga., to deliver an address at the 
 revival in that city of those time-honored and patriotic 
 observances. The occasion was most significant. To 
 quote the felicitous language of the Honorable Jos. 
 B. Cumming, introducing the ' ' Orator of the day : ' ' 
 ' ' The fadt itself exists that for more than a generation 
 the Fourth of July, its memories and observances, 
 were exiled from this Southern land. We now ' call 
 
home our ancient thoughts from banishment,' and we 
 intend to enjoy the delights of the palace our fathers 
 builded." In harmony with this ennobling purpose 
 of a typical and cultured Southern community, it has 
 been deemed proper to reproduce in connedtion with 
 these ledlures, describing the formation of the govern- 
 ment, the address delivered on the memorable occasion 
 designed to strengthen and intensify that true Ameri- 
 can spirit essential for its preservation. 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 In beginning the ledtures on the Constitution of our 
 country, I have, upon refledtion, deemed it proper to 
 give a prefatory statement of the principal causes which 
 •produced our political union. Our constitution is the 
 outgrowth of our political union and the expression 
 of our legal union. 
 
 The people who composed the American colonies 
 before the political union to which I shall advert, en- 
 joyed the benefits of English law ; that is to say, of 
 the common law which had come down to the peoples 
 of the English-speaking races from the ' ' time whereof 
 the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," and, 
 besides, the principles of equity jurisprudence which 
 had been evolved in the judicial history ot the mother 
 country. Those laws, together with the civil law 
 which survived the fall of the Roman empire, pradti- 
 •cally dominated the legal relations of all civilized men. 
 Of course uncivilized, or partially civilized people, 
 have no positive laws — in a word, no jurisprudence. 
 But the English law, though of force everywhere in 
 
10 
 
 the colonies, did not join them into such a political 
 union as made them a unified nation. The incidents 
 which brought about that result should be vivid in the 
 knowledge and memory of every youth of our coun- 
 try ; indeed, of every American citizen. 
 
 The colonial people of English descent, in the early 
 settlement of our country soon became opposed to the 
 ambitions of the French, ever a daring and energetic 
 race. The English, who had colonized the Atlantic 
 Seaboard, claimed title to the magnificent territory 
 which constitutes our country, through the discoveries 
 of the Cabots, John and Sebastian. The French made 
 claim to much of the same domain because of the dis- 
 coveries and explorations of such famous Frenchmen 
 as Marquette, I^a Salle, Joliet and DuQuesne. These 
 great men, proceeding from what is now Canada, fol- 
 lowed the course of the great rivers trending towards 
 the Mexican Gulf, and explored and claimed for their 
 king that vast and fertile country lying to the west- 
 ward of the Alleghany mountains. New Orleans was 
 founded by a French company; D' Iberville founded 
 Mobile. French forts were placed at intervals from 
 the city of Quebec on the north to the city of New 
 Orleans on the south. With two such races in prox- 
 imity on this continent, both animated with the ambi- 
 tion to possess the soil, it is not surprising that 
 
11 
 
 conflidls soon ensued. The final struggle began about 
 tlie year 1752, twenty years after the birth of Wash- 
 ington and nineteen years after the settlement of 
 Georgia. An association of Virginians and English, 
 5^ormed in "Seq^called the Ohio Company, sought to 
 establish a military post at the jundlion of the Alle- 
 ghany and Monongahela, the two rivers which formed 
 the Ohio, at a point now known as Pittsburg. The 
 French in 1753 construdled a fort at Presque Isle, 
 now Erie, on I^ake Erie, and proceeded to establish a 
 chain of forts through what is now the oil region of 
 Pennsylvania. The chain extended about one hun- 
 dred miles from Presque Isle to the fort at the present 
 site of Pittsburg. 
 
 The representatives of the Ohio company had begun 
 to fortify at that place. Governor Dinwiddle, of Vir- 
 ginia, being apprised of the adlion of the French, sent 
 a young surveyor, just twenty-one years old, to carry 
 the protest of the company, and if need be of the peo- 
 ple of Virginia, to the Frenchmen. This young man 
 was George Washington. The intrepid youth, uncon- 
 scious of his immortal destiny, threaded the pathless 
 forests on an errand which was to evoke fierce and 
 protradled wars, and to result as we shall perceive in 
 the creation of the mighty nation whose richest herit- 
 age of patriotism and glory is the fame of Washington 
 
12 
 
 himself. Washington carried the message and deliv- 
 ered it to the French commander at a small fort called 
 I^e Boeuf, wlien he was informed that it was the pur- 
 pose of the French to maintain their positions and to 
 resist by force any aggression on the part of the Eng- 
 lish, in any part of the territory beyond the AUe- 
 ghanies. He returned to Virginia and conveyed the 
 reply to Governor Dinwiddie, and he himself at once 
 went to work to recruit a regiment of 400 provincials, 
 and at their head marched into the wilderness to main- 
 tain the cause of the Virginians. He was met with 
 an overwhelming force, and at first achieving a slight 
 vidtory, he was surrounded at a place he called Fort 
 Necessity, and was compelled to surrender. Thus the 
 first shot was fired in the struggle between the French 
 and English peoples, which lasted for nearly sixty 
 years, and which resulted, as we shall see, in the 
 establishment of the great empire to which you and I 
 are devoted iu love and allegiance, and whose funda- 
 mental law, the Constitution of the United States, will 
 be our study. It was in 1754, on the 4th d^j' of July, 
 that Washington surrendered Fort Necessity, just 
 twenty-two years before the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence was adopted by the Continental Congress. 
 
 In 1755 General Braddock, with two regiments of 
 regular British troops, was sent to Virginia. The 
 
13 
 
 history of his disastrous defeat is familiar to you all. 
 The courage with which Washington, at the head of a 
 few Virginia riflemen, covered the retreat of the routed 
 and demoralized regulars gave the forecast of his great 
 and resourceful military charadler. Braddock was 3n 
 incompetent commander. Many of his officers were 
 likewise incompetent. He was an imperious, hard 
 drinking, haughty martinet. A most amusing pidlure 
 is given of him and his staff in Thackery's delightful 
 novel, "The Virginians," which is doubtless a not 
 inaccurate delineation of his overweening confidence 
 and his contempt for the colonial troops. 
 
 Montcalm, the greatest of all the French command- 
 ers in this country, was now appointed governor of 
 Canada, and, directed by his genius, the French pre- 
 vailed in nearly every engagement until 1757, when 
 Pitt became prime minister of England. This was the 
 elder Pitt, the famous Earl of Chatham, who had been 
 a soldier in his youth, and whose imperious eloquence 
 in debate and dread invedlive made his rival, Walpole, 
 dub him ' ' the terrible cornet of horse. ' ' Of these 
 statesmen. Dr. Samuel Johnson declared "Walpole 
 was a minister given by the king to the people, but 
 Pitt was a minister given by the people to the king. ' ' 
 The provincials, now for the first time treated with 
 consideration, flocked to the side of the great prime 
 
14 
 
 minister. He soon drove the French from New York. 
 Fort DuQuesne, which had been the gauge of battle 
 between Braddock and his French foes, was con- 
 quered, and the locality appropriately named Pitts- 
 burg. This point is now the site of that great manu- 
 facturing city, which, like the county of Chatham in 
 our own State, will serve to perpetuate the renown of 
 the ' ' Great Commoner. ' ' 
 
 l/ouisburg, a strongly fortified post in the possession' 
 of the French on the island of Cape Breton, was cap- 
 tured. Ticonderoga, after the horrible failure of Aber- 
 crombie, was at last taken, and under the renowned 
 Wolffe, who in the vidlory expended his own glorious 
 life, the British soldiers swarmed up the heights of 
 Abraham, routed the French under Montcalm and 
 took what was then deemed impregnable Quebec. In 
 1760 the English and provincials were triumphant 
 everywhere. George III ascended the throne and the 
 war lasted about three years. During that period, 
 Spain having become an ally of France, the British 
 took the city of Havana in Cuba, the colonists con- 
 tributing largely to that result. In the treaty of Paris 
 which soon followed, that city was exchanged for 
 Florida. At the same time there was a secret treaty 
 between France and Spain by which France ceded to 
 Spain all the territory claimed by the French west of 
 
15 
 
 the Mississippi, and that small portion on the eastern 
 bank where the city of New Orleans is situated. This 
 was regarded thereafter as Spanish territory, but was 
 still called Louisiana, a name which the French had 
 ^iven it in honor of their king, lyouis XIV. I may 
 remark that, in 1800, it was retroceded by the Spanish 
 government to the French then under the control of 
 Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1803, Napoleon sold it to 
 the United States of America, Mr. Jefferson being 
 President, for the sum of $11,250,000, besides $3,500,- 
 -000 of claims of our people from French spoliations 
 which the United States assumed. 
 
 To recur to the treaty of Paris, which took place in 
 1763, the French, having parted with all of their 
 possessions on either side of the great river, ceded to 
 •Great Britain all of the territory east of the Mississippi, 
 except that small portion on which the city of New 
 Orleans was situated, and thus were ended the projedls 
 of the adventurous and devoted Frenchmen, who had 
 •designed a great Gallic empire in America. 
 
 Now, my purpose in calling your attention to the old 
 French and Indian wars may not be at once evident. 
 It is, however, comprehended in the results of that 
 war upon the history and charadler of the American 
 people. The colonists, in all the bloody encoun- 
 ters of that period, exhibited a remarkable degree of 
 
16 
 
 military prowess. Theretofore they had regarded 
 themselves as dependents of the British crown, and 
 had largely relied upon it for their protedlion from 
 their powerful neighbors, the French, who had a far 
 greater influence than the English, with the numerous 
 and ferocious savages, who threatened the attenuated 
 settlements along the Atlantic coast. The provincials 
 now for the first time realized what I may term their 
 own national manhood. They now appreciated the 
 fadt that their officers were equal, if not superior, to 
 the regular officers of the king. The regiments of 
 Royal Americans, as the provincials were called, had 
 achieved great military distindlion. It was known 
 and appreciated by men trained in the profession of 
 arms throughout the military world. They had in 
 these wars received a great deal of practical military 
 training, which became of the first importance in the 
 struggles thereafter to follow. You will remember 
 that, like Washington, many of the most distinguished 
 military leaders of our revolutionary period had served 
 through these wars with the French. More important 
 than all, the necessity of launching the united forces 
 of the colonists against the French had given the 
 first adlual impulses toward the American union. As 
 early as 1748, and from 1748 to 1755, a union of the 
 colonies had been discussed, and indeed urged. 
 
17 
 
 Benjamin Franklin had attempted, at Albany, N. Y. , 
 to formulate a plan of union between all tbe colonies. 
 This was inevitable. It was the logical necessity of 
 their situation. But there was now new incentive to 
 a unified America. 
 
 When vidlorious in the French war the colonists 
 realized that there was before them an unlimited west- 
 ern expansion, and that there was nothing to stop their 
 enterprise, their acquisition and development of the 
 soil, until they reached the shores of the Pacific. But 
 there was also a danger which confronted them, far 
 more persuasive of union and united resistance than 
 the motives I have recounted. In the early settlement 
 of the country, charters had been granted to the peo- 
 ple of Massachusetts, Connetfticut, Virginia, North 
 Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, by which the 
 British crown had conveyed to them all of the lands 
 extending to the then Mississippi river. These royal 
 grants were made when the lands were in adlual or 
 construdlive possession of the French, and while 
 they were the disputed prize of war between the bel- 
 ligerent nations. Now, when the English and colo- 
 nists were vi<3;orious, and the lands were ceded to the 
 British crown, notwithstanding the charters it had 
 previously granted, and on the faith of which the colo- 
 nists had expended their treasures and the lives of 
 
18 
 
 their brethren, it was demanded by Great Britain that 
 these lands, to-day constituting an immense propor- 
 tion of this country, should be treated as crown lands, 
 subjedl to distribution and apportionment by the king 
 himself, to whatever favorite might be the objedl of 
 his bounty. The colonists at once resented this royal 
 perfidy, and mistrust and fridlion followed. It is said 
 by some writers concerning those days that the French, 
 with profound policy, had withdrawn from America for 
 the reason that they knew as soon as the colonists were 
 in a position to assume possession of the lands, they 
 would become powerful enough to throw off the yoke 
 of the British government, and thus the great heredi- 
 tary enemy of the French would be proportionately 
 weakened. Whether that was the true reason which 
 caused their abandonment of the country, or whether 
 it was merely to excuse their defeat, we may not now 
 determine. But certain it is, that, notwithstanding the 
 strong loyalty to the British crown, shown by the 
 people of America at that time, this dispute became an 
 adlive and efficient cause of ill will between them and 
 the British ministry. Then, too, when the peace of 
 Paris in 1762 had relieved them from the fear of France, 
 the British Board of Trade at once began aggressions 
 against American commerce, which even at that 
 early period of our history, had excited the envy and 
 
19 
 
 apprehensions of the merchants of London and I^iver- 
 pool. Obsolete customs regulations were revived, and 
 writs of assistance were issued by the crown in order 
 to colledl customs duties. These were coUedlible per- 
 haps under ancient statutes, which, however, had 
 never been enforced while the colonists were fighting 
 side by side, with the soldiers of the crown, against 
 the common enemy. Searches were made on Ameri- 
 can ships and in American warerooms. Confiscations 
 followed the searches, and immediate resistance was 
 put forth by the people. The eloquent Otis, a brilliant 
 son of Massachusetts, urged against these writs of 
 assistance, that they were contrary to Magna Charta. 
 It was replied that they were justified by adl of parlia- 
 ment. Otis met this proposition with the didlum of 
 Coke that an adl of parliament contrary to Magna 
 Charta is null and void. The English theory was 
 that the colonies were merely corporations. That 
 the charters had been granted just as a railroad com- 
 pany is created by the laws of Georgia, and that the 
 king had authority over the corporation, just as a State 
 under our constitution now retains the right to change 
 or modify a provision of a charter. But all this was 
 denied by the colonies. They denied that parliament 
 had any such control of their affairs. While they 
 professed unbounded loyalty to the king, they claimed 
 
20 
 
 that this policy of the British government was revo- 
 lutionary ; that the authority of Great Britain did not 
 extend extra quatuor maria, that is to say, beyond the 
 four seas, which encompass that wonderful insular 
 people ; that there was no imperial government of 
 Great Britain which could lawfully make exadlions as 
 against their interests. In this day and time, Vidloria 
 is not only the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, 
 but she is Empress of India, and parliament makes 
 laws for the inhabitants living on the banks of the 
 Ganges and amid the Himalayas, although these hun- 
 dreds of millions of British subjects have no represent- 
 atives in parliament. But the East Indian does not 
 possess the love of liberty and the personal courage 
 which adtuated the American colonists, when they 
 denied the imperial power of parliament and of the 
 king. Indeed, after 1774, they did not address parlia- 
 ment in any of their petitions. They were diredted to 
 the Crown. ' ' I am quite sick, ' ' said Benjamin Frank- 
 lin, " of our sovereignty," on which the British poli- 
 ticians were all the while harping. Franklin was in 
 England at the time, as agent of the American patriots. 
 There had come into his hands some letters which 
 had been written by Governor Hutchinson, the royal 
 governor of Massachusetts, to the private secretary of 
 I/ord Grenville. Among much else exasperating to 
 
21 
 
 the patriots, Hutchinson had written : "If you do 
 not send over regiments at once to uphold the law, we 
 might as well abandon our posts and throw up our 
 commissions. ' ' 
 
 It is not made very plain how' Franklin got hold of 
 these letters, but he caused them to be published in 
 Massachusetts, and afterwards avowed his conuedlion 
 with their publication. Massachusetts petitioned for 
 Hutchinson's removal, and Wedderburn, then solici- 
 tor general and afterwards l/ord Loughborough, in a 
 speech before the Privy Council in behalf of Hutch- 
 inson, made one of the most vehement invedlives 
 against Franklin of which our literature affords an 
 account. Among other things he said : 
 
 " I hope, my lords, you will mark and brand the 
 man, for the honor of this country, of Furope and of 
 mankind. Private correspondence has hitherto been 
 held sacred in times of the greatest party rage, not 
 only in politics, but in religion. The betrayer of it 
 has forfeited all the respe(5l of society and of fellow 
 men. Into what companies will he hereafter go with 
 an unembarrassed face, or the honest intrepidity of 
 virtue ? Men will watch him with a jealous eye ; they 
 will hide their papers from him and lock up their 
 escritoires. He will henceforth esteem it a libel to be 
 called 'a man of letters,' homo trium literarum, 
 
22 
 
 (punning on the I,atin F-u-r, ' a thief.') But he not 
 only took away the letters from one brother, but kept 
 himself concealed till he nearly occasioned the murder 
 of the other. It is impossible to read his account, ex- 
 pressive of the coolest and most deliberate malice, 
 without horror. ' ' 
 
 This seems to me a malicious tirade, for the letters 
 were public in their nature and vitally afiedled the 
 people whom Franklin represented. Burke, Priestly 
 and Jeremy Bentham were there, and so was Frank- 
 lin. "Alone in the recess," writes Bentham, "he 
 stood, remaining the whole time like a rock, in the 
 same position, his head resting on his left hand, abid- 
 ing the pelting of the pitiless storm. " " According to 
 all the reports," said a biographer of I^oughborough, 
 ' ' this powerful invedlive had a result as instantaneous 
 and complete as any that the splendid art of oratory 
 can boast. The lords applauded in a rapture of delight 
 the eloquent and burning vituperation which he poured 
 forth on the head of the unfortunate petitioners' agent 
 and, in the excitement of the moment, voted their 
 petition to be groundless, vexatious and scandalous. 
 An unhappy excitement ! For there was then kindled , 
 from the firebrand which Wedderburn threw with too 
 skillful an aim, the most disastrous war that ever 
 marred the fortunes, or scattered the hopes of England. 
 
23 
 
 He had realized too completely the description of 
 the Roman satirist, ' orator quoque maximus etjacu- 
 lator. ' Franklin, who united in his exterior the sim- 
 plicity of a Quaker with the calmness of a hermit, felt 
 to his inmost soul the flagrant contempt which that 
 harangue stamped upon him, and nourished an anger 
 more concentrated than that of his countrymen (who 
 burnt the efiSgy of the abusive orator) , and more last- 
 ing. ' An illiberal lawyer,' he writes, ' was hired and 
 permitted to abuse the petitioners and their agent in 
 the grossest terms scurrility could invent.' He af- 
 fedled in conversation to regard the philippic as the 
 'idle air one hears, but heeds not,' and said that he 
 despised the speaker heartily, that so mercenary a man 
 would have said as much in favor of the devil, if he 
 bad been well paid for it, as he had said against him. 
 But the speech rankled in his heart ; it is alluded to 
 repeatedly in his correspondence ; and seven years 
 afterwards, on the termination of the war, so trium- 
 phant to America and so humiliating to Britain, he 
 signed the articles of peace, being then ambassador at 
 Paris, in the identical dress which he had worn when 
 inveighed against by Wedderburn. 'He had stood,' 
 said Dr. Priestly, 'conspicuously eredl during the 
 harangue, and kept his countenance as immovable as 
 if his features had been made of wood. But the suit 
 
24 
 
 of Manchester velvet, which he then wore, was again 
 put on at the treaty of Paris. These clothes had never 
 been worn since or afterwards. I once intimated to 
 Dr. Franklin the suspicion, which his wearing these 
 clothes on that occasion had excited in my mind, when 
 he smiled without telling me whether it was well or 
 ill founded. ' Those articles of peace were the tablets 
 of revenge, on which, like the Loredano of Italian 
 history, he wrote his acknowledgment that the debt 
 of retribution was satisfied; nor does the Venetian 
 senator appear to have been more luxurious in his 
 hate than the philosopher of Philadelphia. ' ' 
 
 It is an interesting fadl that the Irish people, who at 
 that time had a parliament of their own, sympathized 
 strongly with the American cause. In the current 
 accounts of their meetings it appears that they resolved 
 to invite to seats on the floor sundry Americans, who 
 happened to be in Dublin, upon the ground that they 
 were members of the ' ' independent parliaments of the 
 American States." George III. had made haste to 
 put down the great Whig families, whose devotion to 
 constitutional government had resulted in placing his 
 dynasty on the throne, and to elevate the Tories. The 
 iEarl of Chatham was driven from power. He had 
 always been a friend of the Americans. Ivord Bute, 
 of whom many scandalous stories were told, became 
 
25 
 
 minister, but lie was soon driven from the adlive exer- 
 cise of government, by the uproar which John Wilkes 
 raised in his celebrated publication, "The North 
 Briton." Grenville succeeded Bute, and, as to the 
 Americans, was as bad as Bute. Rockingham suc- 
 ceeded Grenville and I^ord North succeeded Rocking- 
 ham, all Tories, and these successive ministers of 
 that party essayed to break by force, and show of 
 force, the independent front of the colonists. They 
 enacfted the navigation laws. These were made to 
 ■destroy the opulent trade then existing between 
 America and the West Indies. When the New I5ng- 
 land shipper would send out his vessel to Cuba, laden 
 with the produces of his State, and exchange his cargo 
 for rum or molasses, or other produdls of the tropics, 
 you can understand his anger, when his ship was 
 captured by a British vessel and carried before an 
 admiralty court in one of the ports, and sold, and the 
 proceeds either paid into the treasury, or divided out 
 as prize money between the officers and crew of the 
 ship making the capture. The famous stamp adl, top, 
 was enadled. The Americans rose as one man to 
 resist it. It was enforced but one year, and under it 
 about eighty pounds were coUedled, and to coUedl 
 that eighty pounds cost the British government three 
 thousand pounds. 
 
26 
 
 The coUedlors were threatened by the patriots. 
 They were told if they attempted to colledt the tax 
 they would be ostracised. In many places the 
 stamped papers were taken from them by the indig- 
 nant populace, torn up and the coUedlors run off. A 
 certain coUedlor in Connedlicut came riding a white 
 horse, to lay down his commission, followed by a 
 crowd of his neighbors, shouting with joy at his 
 determination. He declared, rather profanely, that 
 he thought himself ' ' like death on a pale horse with 
 all hell following him. ' ' Granville had said that he 
 ' ' had no idea the stamp adl would be resisted, ' ' but he 
 knew nothing of the American temper. The British 
 Government demanded, also, that the colonists should 
 furnish free quarters for their soldiers, vinegar, food, 
 cooking utensils and liquors, of which, in the king's 
 army, the consumption was great. This added to the 
 excitement. A tax on tea was also imposed. The 
 Americans met that by resolving to buy no tea. The 
 business of the merchants, who consigned tea to this 
 country, was ruined. The British Government at- 
 tempted to relieve them. While it continued to require 
 the Americans to pay the tax, they gave such draw- 
 backs to merchants who sold, that they could afford to 
 sell tea in this country at less than it originally cost 
 them, and it was offered to the colonists at much. 
 
27 
 
 cheaper rates than ever offered before the tea tax was 
 enadled. But the patriots would have it at no price. 
 Then a cargo of tea was sent to Boston harbor. You 
 all remember the story of the "Boston Tea Party," 
 where a number of Americans disguised themselves 
 as Indians, went aboard the ship, broke out the 
 cargo and threw all the tea into the river. Then 
 followed the Boston port bill, the bill taking away 
 the charter of Massachusetts, and several other Adts 
 of the British parliament of a like charadler, which 
 were termed " The Intolerable Adls." This legisla- 
 tion exhausted the patience of the American people. 
 The cry went abroad throughout the land, "The 
 cause of Boston is the cause of us all. ' ' A conti- 
 nental congress was called to assemble in Philadelphia 
 on September 5, 1774. This congress defined the 
 rights of the colonists, and also declared that if the 
 British Government sought to enforce its ' ' Intolerable 
 Adls " by force, they would be met by force. But 
 this was not all the British Government did at that 
 time. It enadled what was called the Quebec Adl, and 
 that Adl proposed to extend the jurisdidlion of Canada, 
 in governmental affairs, over all that portion of our 
 country which is east of the Mississippi and north of 
 the Ohio. In other words, it proposed to make all the 
 New England and Middle States a part of the province 
 
28 
 
 of Canada. This last enadlment was particularly- 
 obnoxious to New Kngland, because at that time the 
 French population of lower Canada, as they are to 
 this day, were Catholics, and New England was 
 as strongly Puritan. 
 
 No enadlment could have been more alarming to 
 the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers. They pre- 
 didled that the Catholic religion and Catholic author- 
 ity would prevail in New England as it did in French 
 Canada, where, by the treaty of Paris in 1762, to 
 which I have previously referred, the British Govern- 
 ment bound itself to permit the free exercise of the 
 Catholic faith, and to preserve all the rights of the 
 various Catholic institutions, a treaty which it has 
 scrupulously kept to this day. 
 
 A second continental congress was called to assem- 
 ble on the loth of May, 1775. On that day Ethan 
 Allen and the Green Mountain boys took by surprise 
 the fortress at Ticonderoga. When asked by the 
 trembling British officer, whose slumbers had been 
 rudely broken, by what authority he demanded a sur- 
 render, Allen replied, " In the name of the great 
 Jehovah and the Continental Congress. ' ' 
 
 In the meantime. General Gage was in Boston 
 with a fine British army. He had, besides, a power- 
 ful squadron of the navy to support him. His troops 
 
29 
 
 included some of the most famous regiments of tlie 
 Britisli army. The Minute Men of New England 
 at that time constituted the principal available force 
 of the continental patriots. Gage sent out a military- 
 expedition to Salem to seize some powder, which had 
 been gathered there by the provincials. He was 
 successful. A short time thereafter, on the night 
 before the rgth of April, 1775, he sent a strong party 
 of British soldiers, the flower of his army, the famous 
 lyight Infantry corps among them, to seize the depot of 
 supplies, flour, powder and the like, which had been 
 coUedled at Concord. Paul Revere rode swiftly 
 through the night to alarm the patriots, and on the 
 19th of April, 1775, the embattled farmers, whose 
 " shot was heard around the world," met the British 
 at Concord. A short fight ensued. The undis- 
 ciplined countrymen were compelled to give away 
 before the destrudlive fire of the British regulars. 
 Several were killed and wounded. The British 
 started on their return, but the alarm had gone forth, 
 the church bells were rung, and the people gathered 
 from every hamlet and outlying farm, and from 
 behind trees and fences, and every point or vantage, 
 the infuriated Americans diredled against their 
 columns a continued and destrudtive fire, which 
 demoralized them, killed many of their number and 
 
30 
 
 wounded many more, and had it not been that Gage 
 sent from Boston a heavy force for the purpose of 
 extricating his troops from their desperate condition, 
 the entire force would have been compelled to lay 
 down its arms and surrender at the discretion of the 
 colonists. The first shot of the 19th of April, 1775, 
 determined the political union of the American States, 
 which survives to this day. The continental con- 
 gress, as we have seen, had declared that if force was 
 used to coerce, that it would be met with force. This 
 implied that the colonies would unite to meet force 
 with force. The condition had offered itself. Force 
 had been used, life had been lost, resistance had been 
 offered, the Americans had been victorious, and thus 
 political union was cemented by the blood of those 
 simple New Englanders, which stained the green at 
 Concord ; and that union lives and survives to-day, 
 perpetuated more definitely and effedlively by the 
 legal union of our written Constitution, and, under its 
 benign authorit}-, we have become the wealthiest 
 and strongest, the least trammelled and fettered peo- 
 ple on earth. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 In our last ledlure we considered the more impor- 
 tant incidents which occasioned the collision between 
 the Massachusetts patriots and the British troops at 
 I/exington and Concord, on the 19th of April, 1775. 
 The thrilling intelligence of the conflidl went forth 
 throughout the land with the speed of the fiery cross 
 in Scott's noble poem. It echoed along the beautiful 
 shores of the Hudson, immortalized in the melodious 
 prose of Washington Irving. It traversed the Middle 
 States and lighted fires of patriotism at Philadelphia, 
 Baltimore, and Annapolis. It kindled the fervid 
 Americanism of the Carolinas and Georgia. West- 
 ward across the lovely Virginian valley, watered by 
 the historic stream, whose crystal tide in the termi- 
 nology of the Indian is " Shenandoah," " the daugh- 
 ter of the stars," the inspiration took its course. 
 
 The stark riflemen of the mountains rallied to the 
 gallant Morgan, and in twenty-one days marched 
 from Winchester to Cambridge — a famous corps, whose 
 achievements modified the tactics of European armies, 
 
32 
 
 suggested the lyight Infantry of Frederick and the 
 tiraileurs of Napoleon. The news crossed the AUe- 
 ghanies and followed Daniel Boone amid the primeval 
 forests of Kentucky, and a hunters' encampment, on 
 the present site of that beautiful city in the famed 
 regions of the Blue Grass, was named IvCxington in 
 honor of the intrepid New Englanders, who had 
 taken instant counsel of their courage, avenged the 
 slaughter of their neighbors and driven in panting 
 haste the crack regiments of the royal army. That 
 the blood of their northern brethren was shed, was 
 known to Georgians on the loth of May, and the next 
 night saw our State added to the union of the colonies. 
 Noble Wimberly Jones, Joseph Habersham and Ed- 
 ward Telfair broke open the magazine of the king in 
 Savannah and took therefrom five hundred pounds 
 of gun powder for the patriot arms. Counties of 
 the State bear the names of each of these great 
 Georgians. 
 
 Ticonderoga, you will remember, was captured on 
 the loth of May. This fortress had cost the British 
 Government eight millions sterling, forty millions of 
 our money. The French minister wrote to his gov- 
 ernment from Ivondon that the Americans had shown 
 in succession that they knew how to argue, to negotiate 
 and to fight. 
 
33 
 
 But the American patriots were not friendless in 
 England. The eldest son of Lord Chatham, and 
 brother of William Pitt, was aide de camp of the 
 Governor of Canada. When ordered to take arms 
 against the Americans he at once resigned. The 
 gallant admiral, Keppel, afterwards drowned at the 
 sinking of the line-of -battleship, "Royal George," in- 
 Portsmouth harbor, a most distinguished naval officer,, 
 stated that he was willing and anxious to serve the 
 king against the hereditary enemies of his country, 
 but he was unwilling to bear arms against his brethren, 
 in America. It is related that James Edward Ogle- 
 thorpe, founder of the colony of Georgia, and then the 
 lieutenant-general of the British armies, refused the 
 command of the forces sent against the Americans.. 
 Many of the most distinguished families of the middle 
 classes in Great Britain wore mourning openly, de- 
 claring that they did so for brothers, who had been 
 slaughtered by the British troops. The recorder of 
 lyondon was seen in mourning by a friend, who asked 
 him if he had lost a relative. " Yes," saidhe, "many 
 brethren at I^exington and Concord. ' ' I/ord Effing- 
 ham, a distinguished military officer, resigned because 
 he did not intend to fight the colonies. He was pub- 
 licly thanked by the merchants of I^ondon and Dublin. 
 A county in this State bears his name in honor of his 
 
34 
 
 devotion to the cause of the patriots. The Duke 
 of Gloucester, brother of the king, was a friend to 
 the colonies. He was, however, a man of weak 
 chara<5ler, but his advocacy of our cause, secured for 
 us one of our strongest and most illustrious friends. 
 He had gone over by permission of the French king 
 to inspedl the military fortress at Metz, and he was 
 received at that place by a number of French officers. 
 Among them was a young man of immense fortune 
 and distinguished ancestry, whose chivalric nature 
 prompted him at all times to espouse the cause of the 
 oppressed. At a banquet, at which Gloucester was 
 present, the young officer listened with great attention 
 to the story of the Americans, and after a time became 
 so fired with the justice of their cause and the opportu- 
 nity to serve millions of brave and misgoverned peo- 
 ple, that he sought permission from his king to tender 
 his services to the Americans. This was finally 
 granted and thus we acquired the assistance of Marquis 
 de I/aFayette, the friend of Washington, and one of 
 the most conspicuous figures, both of the American 
 and the French revolutions. 
 
 John Wesley thought, and declared, that silence 
 on his part would be a sin against the lyord. He 
 knew something of the charadler of the men who 
 were to take part in this struggle, because he had been 
 
35 
 
 with General Oglethorpe in the settlement of Savan- 
 nah. It is true that in some respedls his career at 
 Savannah was not altogether fortunate. He fell in 
 love, as a young Protestant clergyman may sometimes 
 do, and it is said broke his plighted troth to the lady 
 of his affedlions. She sued him and he left the colony, 
 some thought, under a cloud. But this was in his 
 early life. He had emerged from the shallows and 
 wretchedness of that period, and had become one of 
 the most illustrious and successful of evangelists. He 
 wrote to Dartmouth and I^ord North, then at the head 
 of the British ministry, "I am a high churchman, the 
 son of a high churchman, brought up from my child- 
 hood in the highest notions of passive obedience and 
 non-resistance, and yet in spite of my long- rooted pre- 
 judices, I can but think them an oppressed people, 
 that they have asked for nothing more than their legal 
 rights, and that in the most modest and inoffensive 
 manner that the nature of the thing would allow, and 
 in view of this, I ask, is it common sense to use force 
 toward America? Whatever has been permitted of 
 this kind, they will not be frightened, and they will 
 not be conquered easily. Some of our valiant pfficers 
 say two thousand men will clear America of these 
 rebels. Nay, nor will twenty thousand, be they rebels 
 or not. Nor, perhaps, treble that number. They are 
 
36 
 
 Strong, they are valiant. Every one of tliem is an 
 enthusiast for liberty. In a short time they will 
 understand discipline as well as their assailants. But 
 you are informed that they are divided amongst them- 
 selves. So was poor Rehoboam informed concerning 
 the ten tribes. So was Phillip informed concerning 
 the people of the Netherlands. No, they are united. 
 They think they are contending for their wives, their 
 children and their liberty. Their supplies are at hand. 
 Yours are three thousand miles off. Are we able to 
 conquer the Americans, suppose they are left to them- 
 selves? And we are not sure of this, nor are we sure 
 that all our neighbors will stand stock still. ' ' 
 
 It would have been well for l,ord North and the 
 British ministry had they heeded the admonitions of 
 such men as the great thinkers and philanthropists, 
 who spoke in behalf of the Americans, but they disre- 
 garded them all. It was with them a question of party 
 spirit. And while the mass of the British people 
 were favorable to our cause, while the I^ord Mayor 
 and the Common Council of I^ondon waited upon the 
 king in person and presented a petition and protest 
 against the attempt to coerce the colonies, the British 
 ministry never faltered in that determination, until 
 seven years' lavish expenditure of blood and treasure 
 satisfied them that our three million of people armed 
 
37 
 
 in the holy cause of liberty "were," as Patrick Henry 
 declared, " invincible by any force their enemies can 
 send against them." 
 
 On the 31st of May, 1775, more than a year before 
 the Declaration of Independence was signed, the 
 patriots of Mecklenburg county, in North Carolina, 
 signed the celebrated Mecklenburg Declaration. 
 
 In June, 1775, on the advocacy of John and Samuel 
 Adams, in the Continental Congress, "Washington 
 was made commander-in-chief of the American forces. 
 He had appreciated the importance of the adlion of 
 the American people from the first. It was significant 
 that he appeared at all the debates of the Continental 
 Congress, of which he was a member, in full uniform, 
 indicating thus that he foresaw an appeal to arms was 
 inevitable. There can be no doubt that Washington 
 is the most interesting charadler of that time. There 
 can be no doubt that of #11 the men who figured in 
 that struggle, his fame is the brightest and will last 
 the longest. He was a man of whom it may be said, 
 that Providence had designed him especially for the 
 work of liberation of the American people. He was at 
 this time forty-four years of age. He was born in 1732, 
 as you all know, on the 226. of February. He was 
 over six feet high, broad of chest, very strong and 
 adlive, accomplished in all athletic exercises, a noble 
 
38 
 
 horseman, and his out-door life as a surveyor, soldier 
 and planter had hardened him to every charadler of 
 exposure. His countenance was grave, but not inca- 
 pable of being illumined by a smile, of whose charm 
 all his contemporaries agree. His eyes were deep 
 blue. He was a man remarkable for his reserve and 
 secrecy, and his services in the wilderness against the 
 Indians had made him singularly vigilant. He was 
 passionate in his nature, but his passions were entirely 
 under the control of his will. It was said of him that 
 he was noted in his youth for the attachments great 
 men formed for him. I^ord Fairfax, an English 
 nobleman, who lived in Virginia, was one of Wash- 
 ington's most intimate friends. There was no doubt 
 whatever among the colonists or their leaders that 
 Washington, of all men, was the most appropriate 
 for the command of the American forces. He was 
 the only of&cer who emerged from the Braddock cam- 
 paign with increased renown, and the beautiful town 
 of Washington, in our own State, was named for him 
 before the Revolution, in honor of the military repu- 
 tation he won in that ill-fated expedition. He believed 
 strongly in the Divine power, and of this belief Mr. 
 Bancroft, in his famous history of the United States, 
 declares ' ' it not only illumines the spirit, but it in- 
 spires the will." 
 
39 
 
 Washington was a man of adlion, not of theory. 
 Integrity was the law of his existence. The devotion 
 with which he attached himself to the cause of his 
 country is evidenced by the fadl that he wholly refused 
 to take any pecuniary compensation whatever for the 
 military services he rendered during the seven years 
 of the Revolutionary struggle. There have been men 
 of greater genius in statesmanship and war, but none 
 of the human race has possessed a judgment more 
 unerring or a charadler more justly balanced. Wash- ■ 
 ington accepted his great and hazardous trust and 
 forthwith mounted his horse and rode to Cambridge. 
 There are interesting stories preserved of how his grand 
 Virginian bearing, his beautiful thoroughbreds and his 
 black servants in livery, affedted the curious minute 
 men, who were better accustomed to the plain sim- 
 plicity of Generals Artemus Ward and Israel Putnam. 
 
 He was now, with his raw levies, in the presence of 
 the British army, behind the fortifications of Boston, 
 and it is certain that no general was ever confronted 
 by greater military difiBculties. His was not an army, 
 but a community in arms, and Washington himself de- 
 clared that ' ' their spirit had exceeded their strength. ' ' 
 In the great number of able-bodied men, adlive, zeal- 
 ous in the cause and of unquestionable courage, he 
 saw the materials for a good army. ' ' But, ' ' said 
 
40 
 
 Bancroft, ' ' the habit of inquisitiveness and self-consid- 
 eration stood in the way of military discipline. The 
 men had never learned implicit obedience and knew 
 not how to set about it. ' ' At one time he had but a 
 few charges of powder for each musket. But the 
 strong and commanding military charadler of Wash- 
 ington soon made itself felt, and the descendants of 
 the Pilgrims were soon working steadily on the in- 
 trenchments, even on Sunday. "There are many 
 things amiss in this camp," said the chaplain, Emer- 
 son, "yet upon the whole God is in the midst of us." 
 Bad as was the condition of the patriot army, the 
 Continental Congress could not help matters. Al- 
 though that body contained many of the foremost men 
 of our race, its feebleness was pitiable. It was not 
 even a legislative body, the delegates were merely 
 committees from twelve independent colonies. For 
 the hall they occupied they were indebted to the car- 
 penters of the city of Philadelphia. They had no foot 
 of land on which their decisions could be made effedl- 
 ive. They had no officer to carry them out, and no 
 power to appoint one. Neither soldier nor officer 
 could they commission. They had no money and no 
 authority to borrow or coUedl any. There was no 
 president. There was but one house of congress. 
 There were no means of raising an army except by the 
 
41 
 
 voluntary adlion of the separate colonies. The body 
 had no authority to make laws and no judiciary by 
 which they could be enforced. 
 
 The patriots up to this time protested that they had 
 no purpose to separate from Great Britain. ' ' I never 
 heard from any person the least expression of a wish 
 for separation," Franklin had said to lyord Chatham. 
 In Odlober, 1774, Washington himself had written : 
 ' ' No such thing as independence is desired by any 
 thinking man in America, ' ' and Jefferson declared that 
 before the 19th of April, 1775, "he never heard a 
 whisper of a disposition to separate from Great 
 Britain," and a month after Washington had assumed 
 command of the Continental Army around Boston, 
 Congress authorized Richard Penn to present a last 
 petition to the king for a redress of grievances. Penn 
 was one of the proprietaries and an ex-governor of 
 Pennsylvania. He hastened on his mission, but he 
 was treated with disdain by the British ministry. The 
 king would not see him, and George III. eagerly 
 showed his determination, to use his own expression, 
 ' ' to force the deluded Americans into submission. ' ' It 
 is but just, however, to the people of England to record 
 that when the king's proclamation denouncing the 
 Americans and their friends as traitors was read at 
 the Royal Exchange it was denied the customary 
 
42 
 
 ceremonies by the merchants assembled, and was- 
 received with a general hiss. Thus, notwithstanding 
 the reluctance of the patriots to separate from the 
 mother country, events in England, as in America, 
 were furthering the progress of independence. The 
 first flag was hoisted by the American army on New 
 Year's day, 1776, but the flag itself, even at that late 
 date, yet indicated the attachment of the Ameficans- 
 to English ideas and English symbols. While it had 
 the stripes, which now ornament the ensign of our 
 country, in place of the stars, it had the crosses of 
 St. Andrew and St. George. About this time Tom 
 Paine's famous pamphlet, "Common Sense," was 
 issued. It was written in a simple and attradlive 
 style, was submitted by its author to Franklin and 
 Rush, who advised its publication, and, read by 
 everybody, it seemed to inspire the minds of Ameri- 
 cans everywhere with the same determination at the 
 same moment ; that the separation of the colonies 
 from the mother country was the inevitable neces- 
 sity of the situation. 
 
 The enemies of Great Britain in Europe had fore- 
 
 , seen this facft for some time. France, using the name 
 
 of a ficflitious firm in Paris, had been shipping arms, 
 
 money and supplies to the American States, and 
 
 shortly thereafter, on June i, 1776, Richard Henry- 
 
43 
 
 I/ee, for the State of Virginia, introduced in the Con- 
 tinental Congress a resolution looking to the complete 
 independence of the American States. It was seconded 
 by John Adams. A committee on a Declaration of 
 Independence was appointed. It was composed of 
 Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, 
 Roger Sherman and R. W. I/ivingston. To Jefferson 
 was committed the duty of preparing the declaration. 
 This illustrious American was regarded as the chair- 
 man of the committee. His masterly ability, the power 
 and influence of the noble commonwealth he repre- 
 sented, the strong hold he had acquired on the hearts 
 of his colleagues, his captivating modesty and his ex- 
 quisite grace of manner had combined to designate 
 him for a duty which shall make his name illustrious 
 as long as freedom is valuable to man. His trust and 
 confidence in the people was not surpassed, if, indeed, 
 it was equalled, by any of his contemporaries, and the 
 confidence was returned to him in no stinted measure. 
 Enthusiastic by nature, his contemplative and serene 
 philosophy was not equalled in the revolutionary 
 period save approximately perhaps by the practical and 
 induc5live powers of Franklin. With tastes elegant 
 and refined, susceptible to the charms of music, an 
 aristocrat by birth and education, a trained and suc- 
 cessful lawyer, he nevertheless became the tutelar 
 
44 
 
 saint of Democracy. His various studies compre- 
 hended the literature of the classics and of the exadt 
 sciences ; devoted to the teachings of nature ; an enemy 
 of the bigot and fanatic ; he has been charged with 
 hostility to religion , but it is declared by the historian 
 that he believed more than he himself was aware of. 
 He was no orator, no speech of his is recorded, but no 
 man on the continent was better qualified for the fear- 
 less announcement of the wrongs, the resentments and 
 resolves of the American people. 
 
 " He was," writes Bancroft, " no visionary devotee 
 of abstradt theories, which, like disembodied souls, 
 escape from every embrace, but the nursling of his 
 country, the offspring of his time, he set about the 
 work of a practical statesman, and his measures grew 
 so naturally out of previous law and the fadls of the 
 past, that they struck deep root and have endured. ' ' 
 
 I^ate in June, 1776, this great Virginian, without 
 reference to book or document, drafted the Declara- 
 tion, the most famous instrument since Magna Charta, 
 nay more, the most famous of all that is not encom- 
 passed by the halo of the Divine. Submitting the 
 paper separately to Benjamin Franklin and John 
 Adams, they had to suggest but trifling alterations, 
 thus enabling the committee to report on the 2d of 
 July, and for two succeeding days it was discussed in 
 
45 
 
 the spirit of that independence which Congress had 
 resolved to accomplish, but with the most careful 
 scrutiny of its style and its statements. 
 
 After Jefferson, more than to any other member of 
 the congress, for the Declaration and its adoption, our 
 country owes gratitude and honor to John Adams. 
 Three years the junior of Washington, of Puritan 
 stock, carefully educated, as are all the children of his 
 commonwealth, a graduate of Harvard College, a 
 trained and successful lawyer, he came to the side of 
 Jefferson at the supreme moment of the revolutionary 
 crisis. It has been said of him that he, too, was emi- 
 nently fitted for the part he was to perform. He had 
 been ' ' rocked in the early storms of the controversy. ' ' 
 He had long been connedled with colonial remon- 
 strance against the aggressions of Great Britain. So 
 closely was he familiar with every grievance of the 
 colonies, it was related of him, when a very aged man, 
 that he could recite all the adls of parliament affedling 
 the colonies, with an accurate statement of their titles 
 and contents, and as precisely the memorials and 
 remonstrances from the colonies, with which these 
 aggressions were met. 
 
 The Congress of the Revolution sat with closed 
 doors. We have no exadl account of the utterances 
 of its members while the Declaration was under 
 
46 
 
 discussion. Years afterward the patriotic divination of 
 Daniel Webster attributed to John Adams what he must 
 have uttered in that memorable debate. I^et us, with 
 Mr. Webster, bring before us the Congress itself, which 
 was about to decide the question momentous with the 
 fate of our country. I^et us ' ' survey the anxious and 
 care-worn countenances, let us hear the firm-toned 
 voices of this band of patriots." The resolute and 
 unselfish Hancock was the president ; Dickinson, of 
 Pennsylvania, for a long time had been the rival in 
 Congress of John Adams. He knew the opinions of 
 the great son of Massachusetts, and he rose to combat 
 those opinions and to justify himself. Skillfully he 
 appealed to the fears of the members and to the im- 
 pressions which their education as British subjedls still 
 preserved in large measure upon the opinion of the 
 house. He "shuddered" before the responsibility, 
 he depidled the weakness of the American forces and 
 the utmost strength of England. He portrayed our 
 cities burning,' the pleasant fields of the colonies 
 whitened and bleached with the bones of their owners, 
 and their limpid streams running red with the blood 
 of their children. The reply of Mr. Adams was ade- 
 quate to the occasion. Finally he exclaims : ' ' Sir, 
 you and I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but 
 I see — I see clearly — through this day's business. 
 
47 
 
 You and I indeed may rue it. We may not live to the 
 time when this Declaration shall be made good. We 
 may die, die colonists, die slaves — die, it may be, 
 ignominiously on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. 
 If it be the pleasure of heaven that my country shall 
 require the poor offering of my life, the vidlim shall 
 be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when 
 that hour may. But while I do live let me have a 
 country, or at least the hope of a country — and that a 
 free country. But whatever may be our fate, be assured 
 that this Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure ; 
 it may cost blood ; but it will stand, and it will richly 
 compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of 
 the present I see the brightness of the future, as the 
 sun in heaven." 
 
 What an inspiration to the youth of our country to 
 know that such a man was of our blood. Such was 
 the spirit of the men who accomplished that, which 
 has resulted in the great plan of government which it 
 will be your privilege to study , and your duty to master. 
 The Declaration was adopted. Fifty years had passed, 
 the Revolution had been fought, American independ- 
 ence had been accomplished, the valor of the Ameri- 
 can people had been demonstrated against savage 
 foes in America and in Africa. The gallant sailors of 
 the American fleet had carried our colors in triumph 
 
48 
 
 on the sea, in battle with Great Britain. Constitu- 
 tional liberty had been assured, and the country was 
 on the high road to its present prosperity. When on 
 the Fourth of July, 1826, the beams of the rising sun 
 were saluted with detona,tions of artillery and the joy- 
 ful cries, the bonfires and exultations of a grateful 
 people, it was whispered with white lips, at Quincy 
 and at Charlottesville, that Adams and Jefferson were 
 dying. 
 
 In that sturdy New E)ngland town, and in that beau- 
 tiful village, resting at the foot of the mountain, where 
 the great Virginian had tranquilly and usefully occu- 
 pied the evening of his life, there the acclamations of 
 the people were hushed, and, overwhelmed with grief, 
 they awaited the expiring sighs of these sages and 
 patriots of the Revolution. How noble is the thought, 
 how exulting the refledlion, that these great men sur- 
 vived to the fiftieth anniversary of Independence Day, 
 and when their work was done, its fruition known and 
 enjoyed by increasing millions of their countrymen, 
 "they sank to rest with all their country's wishes 
 blest. " It is related of Adams on the day of his death 
 that, hearing the noise of bells and cannon, he asked 
 the occasion. On being reminded that it was Inde- 
 pendence Day, with feeble and faltering voice he ex- 
 claimed : ' ' Independence forever. ' ' And they tell it 
 
49 
 
 of Jefferson, as the last sands of life were falling, he 
 whispered that, hadit not been presumptuous, he would 
 have indulged the hope, if it pleased God, that he 
 might live to see the day he had helped to make im- 
 mortal, and once more look abroad on his country on 
 the great day of liberty. " Heaven," said Mr. Web- 
 ster, "in its mercy fulfilled the prayer; he saw the 
 sun ; he enjoyed its sacred light ; he thanked God for 
 these mercies and bowed his aged head to the grave. " 
 
 I have stood by the tomb of Jefferson, reared by his 
 loving country, and on it is inscribed ' ' Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, the Founder of the University of Virginia, and 
 the Author of the Declaration of Independence. ' ' No 
 nobler epitaph was ever written. I commend to you,, 
 gentlemen, the study of the Declaration itself. Its. 
 literary merit is unsurpassed. 
 
 It is deplorable, I think, that in our State we have 
 in large measure abandoned the legitimate celebration 
 of Independence Day, and the custom universal during 
 a la:ge part of our country's life, of reading on that 
 day the Declaration of Independence. By returning 
 to that time-honored observance, we will not only 
 kindle anew our love of country and our pride in the 
 glories our fathers won, but we will do deserved honor 
 to the great men who took part in its incipient strug- 
 gles, and whose patriotism and valor insure the 
 
50 
 
 blessings of popular government to ourselves and 
 our children to the latest times. 
 
 In order that we may now perceive the point in the 
 succession of events essential to the proper under- 
 standing of our country's Constitution, at which we 
 have arrived, it will be only necessary to recite the 
 last clause of the immortal Declaration itself : 
 
 " We, therefore, the representatives of the United 
 States of America, in general Congress assembled, 
 appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the 
 redlitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by 
 authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly 
 publish and declare that these United Colonies are, 
 and of right ought to be free and independent States ; 
 that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British 
 crown, and that all political connedlion between them 
 and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be 
 totally dissolved, and that as free and independent 
 States they have the full power to levy war, conclude 
 peace, contradl alliances, establish commerce, and to 
 do all other adls and things which independent States 
 may of right do. And for the support of this Decla- 
 ration, with a firm reliance on the protedlion of Divine 
 Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our 
 lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." 
 
LECTURE III. 
 
 The struggle for liberty by the American people 
 began, as we have seen, with " the shot heard around 
 the world " at Concord, on the 19th of April, 1775. It 
 pradlically ended on the 19th of Odlober, 1781, when 
 the troops of I<ord Cornwallis, with their bands play- 
 ing an old air, called ' ' The World Turned Upside 
 Down," marched out of their works at Yorktown, and, 
 as prisoners of war, decently piled their arms on the 
 ground in the presence of the vidlorious French and 
 American armies. The intervening years were teem- 
 ing with the possibilities of America, yet, save for its 
 last seven months and eighteen days, the war was 
 fought without any compacfl between the States and 
 with no government, but the indefinite and vaccilat- 
 ing authority exercised by the Continental Congress. 
 This Congress itself did not seem to claim a definite 
 constituency. In its more formal enadlments the Con- 
 gress described itself as ' ' The Delegates Appointed by 
 the Good People of these Colonies," and when it pre- 
 sented that great instrument, which has well been 
 
52 
 
 called the Magna Charta of American I^iberty, while it 
 was termed a ' ' Declaration by the Representatives of 
 the United States of America in Congress Assembled, ' ' 
 yet the words were added, ' ' By the Delegates Ap- 
 pointed by the Good People of the Colonies. ' ' After 
 the Revolution, in the case of Penhallow vs. Doane, 
 the Supreme Court states the character of the Revolu- 
 tionary Government : ' ' The powers of Congress were 
 revolutionary in their nature, arising out of events 
 adequate to every National emergency, co-extensive 
 with the objedl to be attained. Congress was the gen- 
 eral, supreme and controlling council of the nation, 
 the center of force and the sun of the political system. ' ' 
 " The danger being imminent and common, it be- 
 came necessary for the people to coalesce and a6t in 
 concert in order to divert or break the violence of the 
 gathering storm. They accordingly grew into union 
 and formed one great political body, of which Con- 
 gress was the diredling principle and soul." But, 
 while these causes for union were all-controlling, the 
 Government it produced was feeble beyond debility. 
 Nearly a "year before the adoption of the Declaration, 
 with the sagacity and prescience, for which his fame 
 is illustrious, Benjamin Franklin had submitted to 
 Congress a draft of articles of confederation, which 
 proposed a union ' ' until reconciliation with the mother 
 
53 
 
 country," and if that should fail, a perpetual union, 
 but it was ignored. When, however, the determina- 
 tion for independence had mastered the minds of the 
 delegates, they realized the need of a binding compadl, 
 and on the nth of June, 1776, the day the committee 
 for preparing the Declaration of Independence was 
 designated, Congress resolved that a committee be 
 appointed to prepare and digest a form of confedera- 
 tion. It was appointed on the next day, and on the 
 12th of the same month submitted a scheme in the 
 handwriting of Dickinson, of Pennsylvania. After 
 much debate, on the 20th of August, 1776, Congress, 
 in committee of the whole, reported a new draft, but 
 it was not until the 15th of November, 1777, that this 
 plan, with certain amendments, received its final 
 approval. The articles were eloquently commended 
 for adoption to the States by a committee appointed 
 for that purpose. There were, however, many reasons 
 which caused the States to hesitate. The more im- 
 portant of these were disputes with regard to State 
 lines, and especially the controversy about the disposi- 
 tion of the unexplored empire of crown lands, which 
 extended indefinitely to the westward of the States, 
 and, as some claimed, to the Pacific ocean. 
 
 In the meantime, nothing but the incomparable 
 patience, fortitude and courage of Washington and the 
 
54 
 
 starving army, kept alive the hopes of the patriots. 
 The Congress was without credit. It had no means 
 to colledl taxes. At the beginning of the year 1779 
 it had one hundred and six millions of Continental 
 dollars in circulation. They were worth twelve and 
 a half cents apiece. In April they were worth five 
 cents ; at the end of the year a dollar was worth less 
 than two and a half cents. A common expression 
 was, a wagon load of money would scarcely buy a 
 wagon load of provisions. Then may have been heard 
 for the first time the expression, " Not worth a Conti- 
 nental." Such are the fruits of government where 
 there is no power to enforce a fiscal policy, and to 
 compel each citizen to bear his proportion of its bur- 
 dens. While this was the pitiable condition of our 
 finances, and while Congress was supplicating France 
 for loans, the American people, in proportion to popu- 
 lation, were richer than the people of France. But if 
 the condition of the treasury was bad, that of the army 
 was worse. The soldiers had not been paid for five 
 months. They were receiving from one-half to one- 
 eighth of a ration of meat. Washington made an in- 
 eff edlual appeal to Pennsylvania. ' ' The great man , " 
 wrote Greene privately to the president of Pennsylva- 
 nia, "is confounded at his situation and appears to 
 be reserved and silent. Should there be a want of 
 
55 
 
 provisions, we cannot hold together many days in the 
 present temper of the army." On the 25th of May, 
 1780, two Connedlicut regiments, naked and starving, 
 paraded with their arms and declared their purpose to 
 go home to obtain food. " Nothing stopped them," 
 writes a contemporary, "save the influence of the 
 commander-in-chief, whom they almost adored." To 
 his friend, Joseph Jones, a member from Virginia, 
 Washington wrote in the same month : ' ' Certain I 
 am, unless Congress is vested with powers by the sev- 
 eral States competent to the great purposes of war, or 
 assumes them as matter of right, * * * our cause 
 is lost. We can no longer drudge on in the old way. 
 * * * One State will comply with a requisition of 
 Congress, another negledls to do it, the third executes 
 it by halves, and all differ either in manner or matter, 
 or so much in point of time that we are always work- 
 ing up hill." 
 
 "This, my dear sir," said the noble patriot, "is 
 plain language to a member of Congress, but it is the 
 language of truth and friendship. I see one head 
 gradually changing into thirteen ; I see one army 
 branching into thirteen, which, instead of looking up 
 to Congress, as the supreme controlling power of the 
 United States, are considering themselves as depend- 
 ent on their respedlive States, * * * and I am fearful 
 
56 
 
 of the consequences." Conventions of the States, 
 called by Congress, attempted at one time to regulate 
 prices, and at another to solidify the government and 
 render definite its powers, but in neither purpose were 
 they successful. 
 
 At this time a young man, a student at Kings Col- 
 lege, in New York, when the war broke out, began 
 to' bring the marvelous powers of perhaps the most 
 resourceful and construdlive intelledluality among 
 American statesmen, to evolve order from the chaos 
 of our afiairs. This was Alexander Hamilton. On 
 another occasion it will become appropriate to discuss 
 his charadler more at large. At that time "William Pitt 
 and Charles James Fox were the young parliamentary 
 giants of Great Britain. Of Pitt, Bancroft remarks 
 that "Hamilton excelled him in vigor, consistency 
 and versatility," and that the style of the latter in 
 debate and writing ' ' was devoid of ornament, attradl- 
 ive only by strength of thought and clearness of ex- 
 pression like that of Fox." At this time Hamilton 
 was, and for three years and a half had been, the 
 ablest and most trusted confidential secretary of 
 Washington, and on September 3, 1780, he wrote to 
 Duane, a member of Congress from New York : "We 
 must at all events have a vigorous confederation, if 
 we mean to succeed in the contest and be happy 
 
57 
 
 thereafter. Internal policies should be regulated by 
 the legislatures. Congress should have complete 
 sovereignty in all that relates to war, peace, trade, 
 finance, foreign affairs, armies, fleets, fortifications, 
 coining money, establishing banks, imposing a land 
 tax, poll tax, duties on trade and the unoccupied 
 lands. ' ' The foreknowledge of the inevitable evolu- 
 tion of our government by this miracle of an aide-de- 
 camp will seem to you to rival prophecy itself. 
 
 This remarkable letter was written from his tent, 
 while the writer was surrounded by the ragged and 
 hungry soldiers of Washington. Congress was toiling 
 for the future with prophetic inspiration like that of 
 Hamilton, and at the same time recommended that 
 "the western lands, which might be ceded to the 
 United States, should be settled and formed into dis- 
 tin(5t republican States that should become members 
 of that federal union and have the same rights of 
 sovereignty, freedom and independence as the other 
 States." 
 
 On October 22d, Washington wrote almost piteously 
 to the friend of his youth, George Mason, of Virginia : 
 ' ' We are without money and without provisions and 
 forage, except what is taken by impress; without 
 clothing, and shortly shall be, in a manner, without 
 men. In a word, we have lived upon expedients 
 
58 
 
 until we can live no longer. The history of this, 
 war is the history of temporary devices instead of sys- 
 tem, and economy which results from it. If we mean to 
 continue our struggle * * * the amplest powers 
 must be lodged in Congress as head of the federal 
 union — adequate to all purposes of war. Unless 
 these things are done, our efforts will be in vain." 
 On the I ith of September, Glover, of Massachusetts, 
 wrote home : " It is now four days since your line 
 of the army has eaten a mouthful of bread. We have 
 no money, nor will anybody trust us. The best of 
 wheat is at this moment selling in the city of New 
 York for three-quarters of a dollar for a bushel, and 
 your army is starving for want." 
 
 It is plain that these conditions could not be long 
 endured, and it is not surprising, therefore, that 
 on the night of January i, 1781, some of the Penn- 
 sylvania line, mainly new-comers from Ireland, 
 mutinied and marched to Princeton, carrying with 
 them six pieces of artillery. While these soldiers- 
 could no longer suffer the extremities of hunger and 
 cold, they were yet patriotic enough to seize the spies 
 whom Sir Henry Clinton sent among them to encour- 
 age mutiny, and these were promptly hanged. The 
 New Jersey troops, who had a large proportion of 
 foreigners in their ranks, were also threatening in 
 
59 
 
 their demonstrations, but, among the Continentals, 
 there were thirty regiments from New England, and 
 these Washington marched over the frozen roads and 
 quelled the mutiny. I^aFayette, writing home to his 
 wife, recorded: " No European army would suffer 
 one-tenth part of what the American troops suffer. 
 It takes citizens to support hunger, nakedness, toil 
 and the total want of pay, which constitutes the con- 
 dition of our soldiers, the most patient that are to be 
 found in the world." Every effort was now directed 
 by the patriots to induce the acceptance of the Articles 
 of Confederation, which had been pending since 1776. 
 With the adlion of Maryland, the United States of 
 America, each and every one of the thirteen adopted, 
 confirmed and ratified their confederation and per- 
 petual union. 
 
 The United States of America now consisted of 
 thirteen truly sovereign States. Their " firm league 
 of friendship," as it has been called, was described in 
 the preamble as a " Perpetual Union," but it was 
 soon discovered to be a union in name, and not in 
 fadl or force. Writing to Duane the year before, 
 Hamilton had with absolute precision indicated its 
 fatal defedl. "It is defedtive and requires to be 
 altered. It is neither fit for war nor peace. The 
 idea of an uncontrollable sovereignty in each State 
 
60 
 
 will defeat the powers given to Congress and make 
 our Union feeble and precarious." It was indeed 
 fortunate that after Yorktown, no British ministry- 
 could be framed which would support George III. 
 in his yet unshaken purpose to subjugate the Ameri- 
 can States. Peace was formally declared on Sep- 
 tember 3, 1783, Great Britain, with malign but 
 skillful diplomacy, refusing to recognize the inde- 
 pendence of the United States, but recognizing the 
 independence of each of the States, named in their 
 successive order. It is not difficult to perceive that 
 the British statesmen recalled the fable, in which it 
 is narrated that the woodsman, who could not break 
 the fagot, found it an easy task, when he essayed to 
 break the separate twigs. It is even more fortunate 
 that the articles of confederation, which, although 
 not intended to do so, really restridled such powers 
 as the Continental Congress had exercised in an 
 irregular manner, were not adopted until but a short 
 time before the surrender of Cornwallis. Bad as was 
 the condition of the American affairs under the 
 Continental Congress, it must have been infinitely 
 worse under such emasculated congressional authority 
 as the Articles of Confederation permitted to survive. 
 The sole value of the Confederation, notwithstanding 
 the high hopes of its advocates, existed merely in the 
 
61 
 
 fadl, that it was an effort at union. No man saw 
 this more clearly than Washington himself. On the 
 day before it was adopted, he had indicated to a 
 member of the Virginia legislature the ' ' necessity 
 of a controlling power to regulate and diredl all 
 matters of general concern." "The great business 
 of war," he said "never can be well condudted, 
 if it can be condutfted at all, while the powers 
 of Congress are only recommendatory. Our inde- 
 pendence, our respedlability and consequence in 
 Europe, our greatness as a nation hereafter, depend 
 upon vesting Congress with competent powers. That 
 body, after hearing the views of the several States 
 fairly discussed, must didtate and not merely recom- 
 mend. ' ' While appreciating the fadl that there was 
 in certain quarters a fear that he might be laying his 
 plans for a military didlatorship, he did not hesitate 
 to reiterate his views. Jefferson, Wythe and Pendle- 
 ton were engaged in preparing a code of laws for 
 Virginia, and Washington urged upon these, the 
 greatest civilians of his noble commonwealth, the 
 defedls of the Confederation and the immediate neces- 
 sity for power in the central government, to make its 
 authority effedlive upon sluggish and recalcitrant 
 States. ' ' Danger, ' ' said he, " may spring from delay ; 
 good, from a timely application of a remedy. The 
 
62 
 
 present temper of the States is friendly to the estab- 
 lishment of a lasting union ; the moment should be 
 improved ; if suffered to pass away, it may never re- 
 turn ; and, after gloriously and successfully contending 
 against the usurpations of Britain, we may fall a prey 
 to our own follies and disputes." It was, perhaps, 
 essential in that period, when the States were just 
 emerging from their conflidls with the crown, and 
 when the feeling of reliance on domestic legislation 
 and resistance to external authority was universal, for 
 Washington to asseverate in this famous paper : "It 
 would give me great concern, should it be thought 
 of me that I am desirous of enlarging the powers of 
 Congress unnecessarily, as I declare to God my only 
 aim is the general good;" but, when, after the lapse 
 of more than a century, we look dispassionately at 
 the events of those days, we cannot doubt the wisdom 
 and patriotism of his views. A writer in the Ameri- 
 can Museum oi 1786, whose name I do not know, has 
 afforded this concise analysis of the Articles of Con- 
 federation : "By this social compadl, the United 
 States in Congress have exclusive power for the fol- 
 lowing purposes, without being able to execute any 
 of them : They make and conclude treaties, but 
 can only recommend the observance of them. They 
 appoint ambassadors, but cannot defray even the 
 
63 
 
 expense of their tables. They may borrow money 
 in their own name on the faith of the Union, but 
 cannot pay a dollar. They may coin money, but 
 they cannot purchase an ounce of bullion. They 
 may make war and determine what number of troops 
 are necessary, but cannot raise a single soldier. In 
 short, they may declare everything, but do nothing." 
 We may add that the United States of America had 
 no executive, and barring imperfedl prize courts, 
 whose decision could not be enforced until after the 
 adoption of our present Constitution, no judiciary, and 
 not a dollar to pay a judge or juror. This was of less 
 importance, as in the presence of the riotous and su- 
 preme sovereignty of the individual States, there was 
 not a criminal law against the general government for 
 the evil-minded to violate, nor any procedure to bring 
 them to justice, howsoever flagrant the violation 
 might have been. 
 
 Finally, the Congress of the Confederation itself, 
 after repeated efforts to better affairs, silently and in- 
 formally disbanded in disgust, and the French Minister 
 wrote to his government : ' ' There is now in America 
 no general government, neither president nor head of 
 any one administrative department. ' ' In the mean- 
 time, Washington had performed his last public adl 
 under the Revolutionary Government. This was 
 
64 
 
 his formal resignation as Commander-in-Chief of the 
 American Army. He bade farewell to the ' ' ragged 
 Continentals, fearing not," and broke up their en- 
 campment at Newburgh, on the Hudson. He had, on 
 the eighth anniversary of the I^exington fight, an- 
 nounced to his brave army the joyful prospedl of a 
 certain peace. It was now November. He had been 
 concerned for several days with the British evacuation 
 of New York, and at a tavern, near Whitehall ferry, 
 he gave an affedlionate farewell to his officers, grasping 
 each silently by the hand. It was not until the 
 twenty-third day of December that his resignation 
 was delivered to Congress, and Mifflin, the president 
 of Congress, as he received the parchment, exclaimed : 
 ' ' You retire from the theater of adlion with the bless- 
 ings of your fellow-citizens, but the glory of your 
 virtues will not terminate with your military com- 
 mand ; it will continue to animate remotest ages. ' ' 
 The great man now retired to that beautiful colonial 
 home on the romantic eminence, where the placid 
 tides of the Potomac lave its Virginian shore, hard by 
 the spot where his ashes now repose, forever to be 
 hallowed by the love and devotion of increasing 
 millions of his grateful countrymen. But the charms 
 of Mount Vernon could not banish from the mind 
 of Washington the urgent necessities of his countrj-. 
 
65 
 
 He saw John Adams, our first minister to the Court 
 of St. James, welcomed indeed most cordially by his 
 first visitor, the noble and venerable Oglethorpe, 
 the founder of our State, but treated with surly 
 and contemptuous indifference by the British min- 
 istry, who sent no ambassador in return. He saw 
 that when the American Commissioners attempted 
 to negotiate a commercial treaty with Great Britain, 
 they were contemptuously asked whether they had 
 credentials from the separate States. He knew that 
 the public debt could not be funded ; that the interest 
 could not be met ; that no taxes could be coUedled ; 
 that if there should be an attempt to coerce a State 
 to pay its assessment, it meant, perhaps, civil war, 
 bloodshed and disintegration ; that the best securities 
 of the country rated at times as low as fifteen per 
 cent.; that at home and abroad our country was 
 becoming disreputable ; that Great Britain yet re- 
 fused to surrender her western posts, confessedly 
 within the boundaries fixed by the treaty of peace ; 
 that Spain, who for long thwarted the recognition 
 of our independence and was ever the insidious 
 enemy of America, holding the mouth of the Missis- 
 sippi, was striving to withdraw the allegiance of our 
 people west of the Alleghanies ; that the Atlantic 
 coast, from the Bay of Fundy to St. Mary's river, 
 
66 
 
 was cut up between thirteen independent States, each 
 with its antagonistic revenue laws and coUedtion 
 methods ; that tariffs against each other on State lines 
 were alienating the American commonwealths ; that 
 Conne(5licut taxed Massachusetts imports higher than 
 British ; and he heard the plaints of his intrepid com- 
 rades, who had faltered not amid the floating ice of the 
 Delaware, or the Hessian volleys at Trenton, or the 
 agonies of cold and hunger at Valley Forge, or the 
 sweltering heat of Monmouth, who at last had swarmed 
 over the British entrenchments at Yorktown, and now 
 without pay or pensions had repaired to homes of 
 penury and distress. It is not surprising, then, that 
 the Father of his Country, and many who thought 
 with him, determined that America should have a 
 Government worthy of the glories of its past, com- 
 mensurate with the necessities of the hour, and suffi- 
 cient for the exigencies of the' future. I may not in 
 the limits of this ledlure detail how the necessity of a 
 convention to frame an adequate constitution for the 
 United States was rapidly dominating the minds of 
 the American people ; how those brilliant youths, 
 Hamilton, and Madison, and Jay, the cultivated jurist, 
 devoted their facile and lucid pens, their marvelous 
 powers of argument and organization to the cause of 
 the Union. Of Hamilton and Madison it has been 
 
67 
 
 said that "the complement of two such minds was 
 most auspicious for the country. ' ' They were both 
 very young, for such a mighty undertaking, but they 
 ■were in constant communication with Washington, 
 whose serene wisdom curbed the fervid energy and 
 self-confident impetuosity of Hamilton, and encour- 
 aged the dispassionate, clear-sighted and effedlive 
 powers of Madison. It was perhaps fortunate at this 
 period that the destinies of the proposed Union were 
 committed to this triumvirate. Many of the great 
 leaders of the Revolutionary period were unfitted for 
 the task. James Otis was dead. Patrick Henry was 
 devoting the ' ' native wood notes wild ' ' of his elo- 
 quence to the aggrandizement of State sovereignty. 
 George Clinton, Hancock and Samuel Adams, all 
 full of years, were enjoying the ease and veneration 
 due the faithful and successful patriot. Jefferson was 
 minister to France, and John Adams to Great Britain. 
 The venerable Franklin, having controlled all the 
 currents of diplomacy which united in peace, was 
 now governor of Pennsylvania, and had little time 
 for other duties. Washington was the friendly neigh- 
 bor of Madison, and Hamilton he loved as he might 
 have loved his son. 
 
 Virginia, first in many great emergencies, now took 
 the lead, somewhat irregularly, it is true, in calling 
 
68 
 
 the famous convention of 1787. Virginia and Mary- 
 land in those days had disputed rights in the waters 
 of the Chesapeake and Potomac, and the dispute 
 still survives. Commissioners met at Alexandria in 
 the spring of 1785 to adjust this controversy, of vital 
 importance to the denizens of those States, involving 
 as it did the famous oysters of the Chesapeake and 
 the renowned shad and herring of the Potomac. 
 Madison was a commissioner and he skillfully sug- 
 gested to his associates the advisability of calling a 
 conference of the States the next year, for the purpose 
 of forming a uniform system for inter-state commerce. 
 The suggestion, while not stridlly germane to the 
 business in hand, was a good one. Maryland invited 
 the neighboring States of Delaware and Pennsylvania 
 to attend, while the legislature of Virginia enlarged 
 the invitation so as to embrace all of the States. 
 The place of the convention was fixed for Annapolis, 
 and the time September 17, 1786. Distances were 
 great, roads were bad and communication was diffi- 
 cult, but many prominent men took part in promoting 
 the convention. Hamilton secured the accession of 
 his State, and his own appointment as a delegate, 
 and Madison took a horseback journey to New York 
 to complete the preparations, but, after all, only 
 twelve delegates assembled. Hamilton and Madison 
 
69 
 
 were both present. Washington was not there, but 
 he was fully advised by Madison of all that took place. 
 No State south of Virginia, and no State in New 
 England, sent delegates. New York, New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia were repre- 
 sented. The delegates present, not disheartened, 
 issued a formal recommendation to the thirteen States 
 to send delegates to a convention to be held at Phila- 
 delphia on the 14th of May following, and Hamilton 
 prepared a persuasive address to accompany the 
 recommendation. As the time for the second con- 
 vention approached, the adtivity of its patriotic pro- 
 moters increased. The feeble Congress was induced 
 to lend its approval. Madison had again induced 
 Virginia to become the vanguard and had made 
 much use of an autograph letter from Washington, 
 in which the great man had expressed the hope that 
 ' ' Virginia would take the lead in promoting the great 
 and arduous work of reconstrudlion. ' ' This was deci- 
 sive, said a writer on those times. " When Virginia 
 displayed the gilded roll of her delegation, and showed 
 the patriot commander at the head of the list, the 
 whole country thrilled with joy. New Jersey, Penn- 
 sylvania, North Carolina and Delaware now fell in 
 promptly. The Quaker State inscribed first on her 
 standard the name of that other immortal sage, who. 
 
70 
 
 with equal facility, drew lightning from the scowling 
 sky and from the angry breasts of his fellow man." 
 That name, I need not tell you, was Benjamin Frank- 
 lin, who, when more than eighty years of age, was 
 declared to be an ornament to human nature. It was 
 on May 25 that a quorum in the convention assembled 
 in Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence had been signed. At Franklin's request, 
 Washington was made the unanimous choice for 
 president of the convention. 
 
 It was composed of fifty-five members. The grade 
 of intelletftuality was exceedingly high. Many of the 
 States had taken care to send the older patriots. Four 
 had signed the Declaration of Independence eleven 
 years before. Many were brilliant patriots of '76. 
 Eighteen belonged to the Continental Congress. The 
 convention truly represented the wealth, conservatism 
 and culture of the States. While many of the dele- 
 gates in this day would be termed aristocrats, they 
 were all devoted to the maintenance of the largest 
 liberty consistent with the public safety, but no more. 
 The convention comprised men familiar with the his- 
 tory of nature, and competent to deduce the lessons 
 of experience from the annals of time ; jurists of pro- 
 found and solid learning, who well knew how much 
 the noble science of jurisprudence had accomplished 
 
71 
 
 in the advancement of liberty and just government ; 
 soldiers, whose fortitude in the physical suffering of 
 the battle and camp, ennobled them to estimate cor- 
 redtly the blessings of peace, which good government 
 alone can insure. We cannot, in the course of these 
 ledlures, contemplate, as every profound student of 
 the Constitution should do, their deliberations, and 
 the successive stages of their progress to the com- 
 pletion of the great instrument itself. At last it was 
 finished, and the illustrious Bancroft declares, "the 
 members were awe struck with the result of their 
 counsels. The Constitution was a nobler work than 
 any one of them had believed possible to devise." 
 Jefferson has proclaimed that ' ' it was the wisest ever 
 presented to man," and Gladstone, whose marvelous 
 career had begun when your fathers were yet unborn, 
 and who yet survives, one of the noblest instances of 
 enduring intelle<fhuality the world has ever known, 
 has recorded : "As the British Constitution is the 
 most subtle organism which has proceeded from pro- 
 gressive history, so the American Constitution is the 
 most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time 
 by the brain and purpose of man. ' ' 
 
LECTURE IV. 
 
 It was by no means certain, after the convention had 
 completed its labors, that the Constitution would be 
 adopted. It was not submitted to the State govern- 
 ments for adoption, but in every State, conventions of 
 the people were called. The debates in these conven- 
 tions, so far as we have any account, were very able. 
 Finally, the known evils of the Confederation, which 
 had afHidled the country, the urgency of the public 
 danger, the cogency and vigor of the arguments ad- 
 dressed to the public by the friends of the Constitution, 
 began to prevail with the thoughtful and the patriotic. 
 Indeed, this was inevitable. "In our endeavors," 
 said Washington, "to establish a new general govern- 
 ment, the contest, nationally considered, seems not to 
 have been so much for glory as for existence. It 
 was for a long time doubtful whether we were to sur- 
 vive as an independent republic or decline from our 
 federal dignity into insignificant, withered fragments 
 of empire." 
 
73 
 
 It had been related, that while in the closing mo- 
 ments of the constitutional convention, the last mem- 
 bers were signing the parchment on which the great 
 instrument was enrolled, the venerable Franklin, 
 looking towards the president's chair, upon the back 
 of which was painted a half sun, observed to those 
 standing near him that painters found it difficult to 
 distinguish in their art between a rising and a setting 
 sun. "I have," he added, "often and often in the 
 course of this session, and in the vicissitudes of my 
 hopes and fears as to the issue, looked at that behind 
 the president without being able to tell whether it was 
 rising or setting, but now I have the happiness to 
 know that it is a rising and not a setting sun. ' ' It 
 was now to be seen that the sanguine prophecy of this 
 illustrious philosopher was about to be verified. The 
 cause of the Constitution was forging steadily to the 
 front. It is true that the States became the battle 
 ground of its friends and its opponents. It is true 
 that it was required that the conventions in nine out 
 of thirteen States, should be lawfully summoned, the 
 delegates judiciously seledted and piloted to an approv- 
 ing conclusion. There was no political organization 
 to which the emoluments and distindlions of office 
 gave inspiration for persistent and systematic effort. 
 The friends of the Constitution had nothing to offer 
 
74 
 
 to win the popular vote, save an appeal to reason 
 and the claim that the adoption of the Constitution 
 would restore civil order, revive public credit, and 
 bring the great but chaotic power of America into 
 harmonious and well-diredled adlion. On the other 
 hand, the enemies of the Constitution had nothing 
 better to suggest, but, the vis inertia of the States^ 
 the deep-rooted mistrust of centralized power, which 
 the condudl of Great Britain had implanted in the 
 breasts of the people, and the ever-present State pride 
 made their opposition formidable. This was but nat- 
 ural. It had been predidled by Hamilton before the 
 convention assembled. "The State governments," 
 said he, "operate upon those familiar personal con- 
 cerns to which the sensibility of individuals is awake. 
 The distribution of private justice in the courts surely 
 belongs to them, and they must always appear to the 
 sense of the people as the immediate guardians of 
 their rights. They will, of course, have the strongest 
 hold on their attachment, respedt and obedience." 
 It may be added, that, to the statesman not yet ambi- 
 tious of a stronger fight, the politics of the State 
 afforded an easy course for his ventures, which were 
 furthered by his devotion to local interests, to the 
 enhancement of State authority, and by hostility to 
 the supremacy of a central power. 
 
75 
 
 On the other hand, the friends of the Constitution 
 had the ablest writers and, with a few but notable ex- 
 ceptions, the most attradtive popular orators. Many 
 of the delegates in the convention had familiarized 
 themselves with the history of governments. The 
 deliberations of the convention had been secret, but 
 had received the closest attention of such men. And 
 these, when they approached the public discussion of 
 the plans the convention had adopted, to quote a his- 
 torian, "came as from a private rehearsal." They 
 were prepared for argument, while the malcontents 
 were left to make their attack as best they could. It 
 is not to be denied that many of the criticisms of the 
 instrument, in the condition in which it was first sub- 
 mitted, were entirely just. It did not adequately set 
 forth the bill of rights, so dear to all lovers of liberty 
 among English-speaking people, but it was pointed 
 out that the Constitution should not be rejedled on that 
 ground, for, by amendments, the bill of rights could 
 be added. We shall see that this was done. The first 
 ten amendments were proposed to the legislatures of 
 the several States by the first Congress which met 
 after its adoption, on the 25th of September, 1789. 
 They were all ratified by December 15, 1791. When 
 I tell you that these amendments prohibited the union 
 of church and State, preserved freedom of speech and 
 
76 
 
 of the press, the right of people to peaceably assemble 
 and petition the government, to bear arms, to be free 
 from the quartering of soldiers, prevented unreason- 
 able searches and seizures, protected the citizen against 
 prosecution save after presentment or indidlment of the 
 grand jury, guaranteed a speedy and public trial, with 
 the benefit of counsel, the right of trial by jury at 
 common law, prohibited excessive bail, and denied 
 to any person the right to bring suit in law or in 
 equity against one of the States, you will perceive 
 how weighty were the objedlions. 
 
 These amendments, we may remark here, were pro- 
 posed by Mr. Madison, through whose earnest advo- 
 cacy their passage through the first Congress was 
 secured. He has justly been termed " the father of 
 the Constitution," and he was the last survivor of 
 those noble patriots who framed it. He was six years 
 the senior of Hamilton, small in stature, reserved and 
 shy, prone to blush and pale. It is said that strangers 
 were impressed by him as by some plain gentleman 
 farmer, but those who adted with him came to value 
 his singular ability, unerring judgment and his unim- 
 peachable integrity. His modesty and discretion pla- 
 cated the pride and commanded the support of those 
 who were his superiors in age and experience. He 
 was the son of a distinguished family of Virginia and 
 
77 
 
 was educated at Princeton College, a nursery of Ameri- 
 can statesmen. He skillfully avoided personal quar- 
 rels. He moved others by his clear, unimpassioned 
 style of reasoning, and not by fervid eloquence. He 
 had great powers of conciliation and was always ' ' feel- 
 ing," to use his favorite expression, " for some middle 
 ground." This friend of Washington, compatriot of 
 Hamilton and disciple of Jefferson, survived, to that 
 turbulent period of American politics, when it was 
 attempted to nullify and disregard the legislation of 
 Congress, and his last message to his countrymen, 
 penned with the tremulous hand of age, and bedewed, 
 we may believe, with the tears of apprehension and 
 sorrow, appealed for respedl and obedience to the laws 
 of that Union, in whose formation he was a principal 
 indeed an immortal adlor. 
 
 This great man, in company with Hamilton and Jay, 
 undertook the preparation of a series of political essays 
 in explanation and advocacy of the Constitution, which 
 now constitute, in their colledled form, one of the most 
 renowned classics in our language. To this day, 
 despite the enormous transformations of modern times, 
 and the innumerable topics embraced by the expansion 
 of the nation, within the elastic chain of the Constitu- 
 tion, there are many who believe that the Federalist is 
 the best commentary upon our organic law, which 
 
78 
 
 has yet been written. These papers were eighy-five 
 in number, brief, vivid, attradlive in style, clear in 
 statement, persuasive in effedl. They were apparently 
 designed to influence opinion in New York, where the 
 friends and enemies of the Constitution were about 
 evenly divided, but they produced a profound impres- 
 sion throughout the entire country. It is probable 
 that Hamilton originated the plan, and his son asserts 
 that he wrote sixty-three out of eighty-five, that Madi- 
 son wrote only fourteen, and that three others were 
 their joint produdls. On the other hand, Madison's 
 biographer claims that he wrote twenty-nine, includ- 
 ing some of the most important of these famous essays. 
 It seems that Jay wrote but five. On the other side, 
 "lyCtters of a Federal- Farmer, " written, it is said, by 
 Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, were circulated by 
 the thousand. 
 
 At this time Thomas Jefferson was engaged on a 
 mission to France. The renown he had achieved 
 when only thirty- three years of age, by writing the 
 Declaration of Independence, his services as governor 
 of Virginia, his leadership in law reform in that State, 
 his magnetic manners and epigrammatic pen, had 
 given him great influence which was to be scarcely 
 diminished for nearly half a century of his own life, and 
 yet moves millions of his countrymen. His belief in the 
 
79 
 
 people was absolute. He afterwards said : ' ' When- 
 ever our affairs go obviously wrong, the good sense of 
 the people will interpose and set them right. ' ' He had 
 become, while abroad, strongly imbued with the spirit 
 of the French revolution. He had written home : 
 ' ' There is not a crowned head in Europe whose talents 
 or merits would entitle him to be eledled vestryman 
 by the people of any parish in America. ' ' He admired, 
 it is true, the Great Frederick of Prussia, but then, for 
 well-known reasons, Frederick was not entitled to be 
 a vestryman. When, a little later than the period of 
 which we speak, Jefferson began to appreciate the 
 grandeur of the American conception, he exclaimed : 
 " It is indeed an animating>thought that while we are 
 securing the rights of ourselves and our posterity, we 
 are pointing out the way to struggling nations who 
 wish, like us, to emerge from their tyrannies also. 
 Heaven help their struggles and lead them, as it has 
 ■done us, triumphantly through them. The ground of 
 liberty is to be gained by inches. It takes time to per- 
 suade men to do even what is for their own good." 
 This last sentence of the Sage of Monticello was not 
 inapplicable to himself, while the great debate over the 
 adoption of the Constitution was in progress. "When 
 he left America he believed that the Articles of Con- 
 federation needed only a few amendments to give the 
 
80 
 
 government sufficient strength, and while Madison 
 kept him posted as to the progress of the national 
 movement, he seems to have kept his mind open to 
 conviction. The scheme for a central government not 
 dependent upon the approval of State organization 
 pleased him, as did the separation of executive and 
 judicial powers, but his apprehensions were gravely- 
 excited when he found that the draft as adopted did 
 not at first provide for religious toleration, freedom of 
 the press, protedlion against standing armies, for 
 restraint of monopolies and for jury trial. He believed 
 that habeas corpus should be always a living remedy^ 
 and he strongly favored a single term of seven years 
 for the presidency. However, he did not mean by 
 his objedlions to jeopardize the new government if 
 these principles to which he was ^especially devoted 
 could afterwards be surely attained. In the mean- 
 time, Massachusetts had adled. In that State the 
 conservatism, culture and wealth of the people were 
 for the Constitution. The clergy took adtive part in 
 the town meetings. The lawyers, the college-bred 
 men and merchants strongly favored its adoption. 
 There, too, on that side, the famous Revolutionary 
 generals, Knox, Heath, Lincoln and Brooks, arrayed 
 themselves, and with them a long list of men eminent 
 in civil life. It was said that the opponents to the 
 
81 
 
 Constitution were " long-haired folk, bumpkins, green 
 radicals and training-day generals, who came up and 
 down to Boston from their rural constituency to cut 
 their awkward antics and then vanish like Ariels 
 shapes," but perhaps this was calumny. 
 
 John Hancock, who was governor, and Samuel 
 Adams both hesitated. Finally the Boston mechanics, 
 by a great demonstration, appealed to the sturdy pa- 
 triotism of Adams, and Hancock was deftly invited 
 by the Federalists to adl as general mediator. At 
 length the governor, presenting to the convention a 
 list of nine amendments to be added to the Constitu- 
 tion, was supported in temperate and felicitious words 
 by Samuel Adams, and the vote of the Bay State was 
 cast for united America. This adlion won the applause 
 and determined the adtion of the yet neutral Jefferson, 
 who now wrote unhesitatingly to his friends that the 
 true solution was to ratify the instrument and propose 
 the desired amendments. ' ' It will be more diflScult, ' ' 
 he said, "if we lose this instrument to recover what 
 is good in it than to corre<5l what is bad after we shall 
 have adopted it. It has, therefore, my hearty prayers. ' ' 
 
 Before the expiration of the year 1787, the conven- 
 tions of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey had 
 taken favorable adlion, and Delaware won the first 
 honor by its unanimous vote. The Constitution was 
 
82 
 
 very strong in Pennsylvania, and there is an interest- 
 ing precedent in parliamentary law in the adlion of 
 the legislature of that State, when certain opponents 
 sought, by absenting themselves from the meeting, to 
 break a quorum on the vote to hold the convention. 
 The friends of the measure pursued the absentees, 
 caught them, dragged them to the State house and 
 pushed them into the legislative assembly, the door 
 was closed upon them and, with a quorum secured by 
 this energetic condudl, the vote was carried. In 
 January, 1788, Georgia and Connecfticut ratified, our 
 own State giving a unanimous vote, and Connedlicut 
 a majority of more than three to one. The result in 
 that State was due in large measure to the influence of 
 Roger Sherman. * Maryland ratified in April, and 
 South Carolina in May gave evidence of her right to 
 the title, ' ' the Harry Percy of the Union, ' ' bestowed on 
 her many years afterwards by the eloquent Sargent S. 
 
 * George T. Hoar and William M. Evarts are grandsons of 
 Roger Sherman. The grandmother of these great Americans 
 was the beautiful Rebecca Prescott. On one occasion, while 
 visiting her husband at the seat of Government, she was in- 
 vited to a State dinner by Washington, and conduced to the 
 table by the General himself and given the seat of honor on 
 his right. When complaint was made to his Secretary by 
 Madame Hancock that her rank entitled her to that distinc- 
 tion, the Father of his Country replied that it was his privi- 
 lege to give his arm to the handsomest woman in the room. 
 History is discreetly silent as to the effecSl of this Executive 
 explanation. 
 
83 
 
 Prentiss. Virginia and North Carolina had not then 
 given their adhesion, and thus South Carolina dared 
 the risk of territorial isolation. Indeed, the hesitation 
 of Virginia and New York gave the greatest concern 
 to the friends of the Union. In the former State 
 George Mason, who had left the Philadelphia conven- 
 tion, was thoroughly hostile. 
 
 Washington was the ' ' silent watchman. ' ' He took 
 no part in the great debate. Known to be an ardent 
 friend of the Constitution framed by the convention, 
 over whose deliberations he had presided, his majestic 
 personal influence pervaded the country from the hills 
 of New Hampshire to the pines of Georgia. On his 
 return to Mount Vernon, after the adjournment of the 
 convention, he at once mailed Patrick Henry a copy 
 of the new Constitution, with the statement that in 
 his own estimation the plan was the best obtainable, 
 and judiciously called attention to the article which 
 permitted amendments, and at the same time declared 
 that our concerns were suspended by a thread. 
 
 But, with the usual fate of the prophet, Washington 
 had less influence in his own country than elsewhere. 
 He was not a member of the Virginia convention to 
 pass on the Constitution, and Madison was the expo- 
 nent of his views and the reliance of the Virginia 
 Federalists. Washington had advised him to resign 
 
84 
 
 liis seat in Congress to run for the State convention. 
 He had accepted the advice and was now eledled. 
 
 There, too, was John Marshall, tall and ungainly, 
 but a rising member of the Richmond bar, and there 
 he laid the foundation of his distindlion as a friend of 
 the Union, and perhaps of that imperial strudlure of 
 constitutional jurisprudence, composed of the decisions 
 which in after years he rendered, when Chief Justice of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 This great man had been a soldier of the Revolu- 
 tion. It has been said that Washington was a man 
 whom it seems Providence had designed especially for 
 the liberation of the American people. ' ' The provi- 
 dence of God," said Mr. Binney in a eulogy on Mar- 
 shall, "is shown most beneficently to the world in 
 raising from time to time and in crowning with length 
 of days, men of pre-eminent goodness and wisdom." 
 Of him William Pinckney said, ' ' I believe that the 
 gift of John Marshall to America was a special provi- 
 dence. He was born to be the chief justice of any 
 country in which providence should have cast him,'' 
 and Pettigru, of South Carolina, declared "though 
 his authority as Chief Justice of the United States was 
 protradled beyond the ordinary term of public life, no 
 man dared to covet his place, or express a wish to see 
 it filled by another. Even the spirit of party respedled 
 
85 
 
 the unsullied purity of the judge, and the fame of the 
 Chief Justice has justified the wisdom of the Constitu- 
 tion and reconciled the jealousy of freedom to the 
 independence of the judiciary. " In the fervid debates 
 on the adoption of the Constitution, which took place 
 in the Virginia convention, Patrick Henry exclaimed 
 of Marshall : "I have the highest respedl and vener- 
 ation for the honorable gentleman. I have experienced 
 his candor upon all occasions." Some years after- 
 wards, in the famous case in the Circuit Court of the 
 . United States involving the validity of the British 
 debts, these great Virginians were opposed to each 
 other. Of Patrick Henry, Judge Iredell, who pre- 
 sided, said: "He spoke with a splendor of elo- 
 quence," but of Marshall's argument he declared " it 
 was marked by a depth of investigation and a power 
 of reason exceeding anything he had ever known 
 before. ' ' 
 
 We may imagine how titantic was the struggle in 
 the Virginia convention when a Marshall was opposed 
 by a Henry. The latter struck every note of discord 
 as only he could do. " We shall have a king," he 
 cried, " the army will salute him as monarch." It is 
 well known how he seized upon the terrors of a 
 transient thunder storm and invoked the dread flash 
 of the lightning and the detonations of the thunder as 
 
marks of the displeasure of Heaven upon the proposed 
 Constitution. But the stalwart logic of Marshall, 
 the temperate, lucid and impassioned persuasions of 
 Madison, and the powerful, but silent, influence of 
 Washington prevailed and on June 25, by a majority 
 of ten, the Old Dominion cast her lot with her sister 
 States and voted for the Constitution. In the mean- 
 time New Hampshire had become the ninth State, and 
 the Constitution was adopted. It was only a few days 
 now until the 4th of July, and on Independence Day, 
 the joyful patriotism of the people broke out in tre- 
 mendous demonstrations. The anti-Federalists in 
 New York could no longer confront the intensified 
 fervor of the Unionists, and one month behind the Vir- 
 ginia convention, the Kmpire State wheeled into line. 
 The majority, however, was small, and the convention 
 attempted to reserve the right to withdraw. ' ' Has a 
 State convention the right to ratify with such a reserva- 
 tion ?" Hamilton wrote to Madison, now sitting in the 
 Continental Congress. "Such a ratification," said 
 Madison in reply, "or any conditional ratification, in 
 fadt, would not make New York a member of the new 
 Union. ' ' North Carolina and Rhode Island still held 
 out, but the country paid little attention to these recal- 
 citrant States. Our first president was eledled ; our 
 Congress assembled ; the United States courts opened, 
 
87 
 
 enadlments of Congress were enforced by them, and 
 all the administrative departments of the government 
 were in full operation before these reludlant and pout- 
 ing sisters crept into the family circle. 
 
 The people of the United States had now for the first 
 time a government, and they did not delay to avail 
 themselves of its advantages. The Continental Con- 
 gress in September, after the adoption of the Constitu- 
 tion, fixed upon the first Wednesday in January, 1789, 
 for the choice of presidential eledlors ; the first Wednes- 
 day in February for the meeting of the eledloral col- 
 lege, and the vote for the president and vice-president, 
 and the first Wednesday in March for the inauguration 
 of the new government. Now, the first Wednesday 
 of March happened to be the 4th day of that month, 
 and except the first, which was on the 30th of April, 
 since then, that has been inauguration day. There 
 was one man in America to whom the thrilling and 
 grateful heart of every American instindlively turned 
 for president. That man was Washington, and he 
 received the unanimous vote of the eledloral college. 
 Pennsylvania might have presented a candidate for 
 the vice-presidency, but did not do so. New York, 
 laggard in adopting the Constitution, was out of the 
 question, and the second place therefore went to Mas- 
 sachusetts. There were three great patriots of the 
 
Bay State who might properly have been chosen. 
 They were John Hancock, Samuel Adams and John 
 Adams. The last of the three, fourteen years before, 
 had designated Washington as commander-in-chief of 
 the Continental Army ; he was now to be the first 
 vice-president. It is regrettable that, through a mis- 
 take of Hamilton, he did not, like his great chief, re- 
 ceive the unanimous vote of the electoral college. As 
 the Constitution at first provided, the eledlors were to 
 ballot for two persons, and he who received the highest 
 number of eledloral votes became president, while he 
 who was second became vice-president. The anti- 
 Federalists had pressed George Clinton, of New York, 
 for the second place, and, alarmed lest a division of 
 the vote might defeat Washington, Hamilton sug- 
 gested at the last moment that the eledlors should 
 scatter the votes, which would otherwise have gone to 
 Adams. While Washington received the full vote of 
 sixty-nine, Adams, as a result of this suggestion, had 
 only thirty-four votes. The grand old civilian of '76, 
 while patriotic to the core, was passionate and sensi- 
 tive. He never forgave Hamilton. ' ' I have seen the 
 utmost delicacy used toward others," he wrote to a 
 friend, "but my feelings have never been regarded." 
 Washington and Adams were inaugurated on the ap- 
 pointed day. I may not take time to describe to you 
 
89 
 
 the triumphal progress made by the Father of his 
 Country from Mt. Vernon to New York, over the same 
 route on which, fourteen years before, he galloped 
 post haste to take command of the minute men at 
 Boston, the news of Bunker Hill meeting him on the 
 way ; how, at the head of the City Troop, he rode 
 through Philadelphia upon a white horse, wearing, we 
 may safely conclude, with some annoyance, a civic 
 crown of laurel upon his head ; how, at Trenton, an 
 arch spanned the bridge, over which he had led his 
 ragged Continentals to attack the Hessians, bearing 
 the inscription : ' ' The defender of the Mothers will 
 be the Protedlor of the Daughters," and how lovely 
 girls, clad in white, strewed flowers before him, as they 
 sang an ode of welcome. Nor may we describe the 
 -Stately ceremonial, with which he was welcomed to 
 New York ; nor the imposing scene in which the great 
 man, now showing some of the indications of approach- 
 ing age, and seeming less the fearless and resolute 
 warrior, than the venerable and venerated sage, took 
 the oath as First President of the United States. 
 
 In the meantime, since the adoption of the Consti- 
 tution, all the signs of the times had brightened. The 
 Continental Congress, with its last expiring breath, 
 . had adopted the famous and salutary Ordinance for 
 the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio. 
 
90 
 
 The new State of Frankland, which, in the period of 
 " State sovereignty run wild," had been organized in 
 Western North Carolina, had gone to pieces. The 
 old Congress had strongly asserted our right, then 
 denied by Spain, to navigate the Mississippi. ' ' Hope 
 elevated and joy brightened the crest ' ' of every Ameri- 
 can patriot. 
 
 The new Congress, as soon as organized, went busily 
 to work, and between the first of June and the last of 
 September twenty-seven adls and five joint resolutions 
 were adopted, and many of them still survive in our 
 legislation. Madison, who was the administration 
 leader, began his career by reminding his fellow mem- 
 bers that the Union, in its first adl, should restore its 
 credit ' ' and revive those principles of honor and 
 honesty that had too long lain dormant. ' ' Under the 
 magical influence of Hamilton's construdlive genius, 
 the treasury department was organized and began the 
 great work of creating the public credit. It had been 
 supposed that the new Union would never pay its 
 debts. The sovereign States, when the Confederation 
 left each to work its own sweet will, had justified the 
 foreboding. 
 
 When the first revenue adl had passed, the govern- 
 ment securities had risen, but when Hamilton's report, 
 in which he pointed out the ability of the country to 
 
91 
 
 maintain its good faith and pay its debts, was given to 
 the public, the securities made an amazing advance. 
 Their certificates were in demand everywhere. Swift 
 messages were sent by capitalists in every diredlion to 
 buy them up. By a vote of nearly three to one, Ham- 
 ilton's proposal was adopted. When, however, he 
 further proposed to assume the debts of the States, the 
 breadth, power, and honorable generosity of the new 
 government began to be seen. Finally, the debts of 
 the States, amounting to twenty-one million five hun- 
 dred thousand dollars, were assumed by the United 
 States, and to Hamilton belongs the honor of placing^ 
 the National credit of this Union, in the first years of 
 its birth, on the imperishable rock of scrupulous in- 
 tegrity and public good faith. From the moment of 
 Washington's inauguration our country has taken no 
 steps backward. The organic law, he first was chosen 
 to execute, has proven ample for every exigency of the 
 undreamed of millions, to whom it is a palladium and 
 a joy. To our country's youth there can be no tempo- 
 ral subjedl for contemplation and understanding, more 
 important than the history of our government's forma- 
 tion and the nature of its Constitution ; no exemplars 
 so worthy of imitation as the illustrious men, whose 
 prescience and patriotism accomplished the magnifi- 
 cent result. "If there be anything," said a writer on 
 
92 
 
 those days, " which may justly challenge the admira- 
 tion of all mankind, it is that sublime patriotism 
 which, looking beyond its own times and its own fleet- 
 ing pursuits, aims to secure the permanent happiness 
 of posterity by laying the broad foundations of gov- 
 ernment upon immovable principles of justice. Our 
 affedtions, indeed, may naturally be presumed to out- 
 live the brief limits of our own lives and to repose 
 with deep sensibility upon our own immediate de- 
 scendants. But there is a noble disinterestedness in 
 that forecast, which disregards present objedls, for the 
 sake of all mankind, and eredls strudlures to protedl, 
 support and bless the most distant generations. He 
 who founds a hospital, a college, or even a more pri- 
 vate and limited charity, is justly esteemed a bene- 
 fadlor of the human race. How much more do they 
 deserve our reverence and praise whose lives were 
 devoted to the formation of a constitution which, when 
 they and their children are mingled in the common 
 dust, will continue to cherish the principles and the 
 pradlice of liberty in perpetual freshness and vigor." 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 Our ledture this evening will be restridled to the 
 consideration of the eighteenth and last clause of 
 Sedlion 8, Article i, of the Constitution. You have 
 observed that this entire sedlion is devoted to a con- 
 secutive enumeration of the powers of Congress — in 
 other words, to the specific grants by the people to 
 the National legislature. Had the framers of the 
 Constitution remained in the same temper with the 
 framers of the Articles of Confederation, this enumer- 
 ation would have been regarded as sufficient, for the 
 latter instrument forbade the exercise by the govern- 
 ment of any powers not expressly granted — that is to 
 say, not granted in the letter of that compadl. But 
 the statesmen of that period had no mind to form 
 another union, to have it crushed by contempt at home 
 and opprobrium abroad, because it wanted the power 
 to enadl laws appropriate to enforce its authority, and 
 to compel obedience to them when made. Hence it 
 was, that to regenerate, beautify, and, it may be, make 
 immortal that abortive weakling, gasping for the 
 
94 
 
 vitality the States had withheld, it was essential to 
 impart the powers we shall now consider. These 
 powers are expressed in this clause. It provides : 
 "The Congress shall have power to make all laws 
 which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into 
 execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers 
 vested by this Constitution in the government of the 
 United States, or in any department or oflScer thereof. ' ' 
 There is perhaps no clause in this noble instrument 
 which has more strongly fostered the growth of the 
 country, or is now so vital to its rapidly increasing 
 people, and to the satisfa(5lory solution of the innumer- 
 able questions of government our modern development 
 propounds. It has been from the first, the subjedl of 
 acrimonious disputes, and is even now the occasion for 
 political and judicial controversies. We are not here 
 concerned with its political, but with its legal effedl. 
 In previous ledlures, we have instanced how utterly 
 ineffedlive was the Confederation without this power. 
 That ' ' firm lycague of Friendship ' ' purported to confer 
 certain main essentials of government upon the United 
 States, but a grant of power is a nullity unless means 
 to enforce it are also granted. The old argument, 
 hostile to this clause, is that, when a question of the 
 power of Congress arises, the advocate of the power 
 must be able to place his finger on words which 
 
95 
 
 expressly grant it. ' ' This argument, ' ' says Mr. Justice 
 Miller in ex parte Yarborough, i lo United States 658, 
 "is often heard, often repeated, and never assented to 
 by this court. " It is indeed impossible to be other- 
 wise, for the reason that in the Constitution general 
 expressions merely can be used, and had it been at- 
 tempted to express all of the derivative powers of the 
 government, the instrument must have been as volumi- 
 nous as the statutes enadled to make it effedlive. It 
 would have been equally impossible to have expressed 
 all the restridlions on the National power. 
 
 We may not then, in the light of modern jurispru- 
 dence, fail to perceive the significance and value of 
 this clause as a settled principle of our government. 
 It does not, as some may have believed, purport to 
 confer upon Congress the powers of general legisla- 
 tion. It is carefully restridled both by the language 
 of the clause itself, and by a multitude of paramount 
 decisions, to legislation essential and appropriate for 
 carrying into execution the powers vested in the gov- 
 ernment of the United States or in any department or 
 •officer thereof. You have clearly understood that the 
 government of the United States possesses no general 
 powers to legislate relative to the local concerns of the 
 people, such as are exercised by the legislatures of our 
 .States, or by the Parliament of Great Britain, or by 
 
96 
 
 other legislative bodies of foreign countries, which are 
 vested with imperial or general authority, and at the 
 same time with the police power, and other powers 
 relating to local government. The powers of our 
 government are limited, but, so comprehensive and 
 important are the topics to which they extend, they 
 are nevertheless great, and in so far as they are ex- 
 pressly granted, or are necessarily implied, they are 
 sovereign. Not only is this true as to the supremacy 
 of the National law, but it is also true that these laws- 
 are operative on every foot of the soil of every State 
 and of every territory. Said the Supreme Court of the 
 United States in ex parte Siebold, loo United States- 
 37 1 : " We hold it to be an incontrovertible principle, 
 that the government of the United States may, by 
 means of physical force, exercised through its oflScial 
 agents, execute on every foot of American soil the 
 powers and fundlions that belong to it. * » * it 
 must execute its powers or it is no government. It 
 must execute them on the land as well as on the sea, 
 on things as well as on persons. And, to do this, it 
 must necessarily have power to command obedience, 
 preserve order, and keep the peace, and no person or 
 power in this land has the right to resist or question 
 its authority so long as it keeps within the bounds of 
 its jurisdidlion." 
 
97 
 
 This language, which was uttered by Mr. Justice 
 Bradley, was reiterated by Mr. Justice Miller in the 
 famous case, In re Neagle, 135 United States, p. i. 
 The opinion of the Supreme Court in that case was not 
 unanimous. 
 
 Mr. Chief Justice Fuller and the late Mr. Justice 
 I^amar, whose renown as a man and a Georgian is 
 dear to our people, dissented. These eminent jurists 
 were presumed to adhere to those principles of stridl 
 construdlion of the Constitution, which tend to minify 
 the powers, which such jurists as Mr. Justice Miller 
 and Mr. Justice Bradley assert to belong to the United 
 States. While this is true, Mr. Justice I<amar, in his 
 dissenting opinion, used the following language : 
 ' ' Many of the propositions advanced in behalf of the 
 appellee (Neagle) and urged with impressive force, 
 we do not challenge. * * » Nor do we question 
 the general proposition that the Federal Government 
 established by the Constitution is absolutely sovereign 
 over every foot of soil and over every person within 
 the National territory within the sphere of adlion 
 assigned to it, and that within that sphere its Consti- 
 tution and laws are the supreme law of the land, and 
 its proper instrumentalities of government can be sub- 
 jedl to no restridlion, and can be held to no account- 
 ability whatever. Nor, again, do we dispute the 
 
98 
 
 proposition that whatever is necessarily implied in the 
 Constitution and laws of the United States is as much 
 a part of them as if it were actually expressed. ' ' In 
 the presence of such explicit utterances from these 
 illustrious jurists of different schools, he would be a 
 bold man who would deny or question the supremacy 
 of the laws of the United States, framed within its 
 scope and purview to execute the express or implied 
 powers of the Constitution. "Let the end," said 
 Chief Justice Marshall, "be legitimate; let it be 
 within the scope of the Constitution, and all means 
 ■which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to 
 the end, and which are not prohibited but are con- 
 sistent with the letter and spirit of the instrument are 
 constitutional." It follows, of course, that enacfl- 
 ments of Congress, or the adtion of officers or depart- 
 ments of government not within the scope of the 
 Constitution are null and void. 
 
 At this point a question of tremendous importance 
 has been much discussed ; it is, what is the final in- 
 terpreter, of questions involving the Constitution ? 
 This is indeed a momentous inquiry. History affords 
 many instances where the absence of a final and de- 
 cisive arbiter of disputed questions of government has 
 resulted in revolution, with the resulting horrors of 
 war, and the change of institutions. The people of 
 
99 
 
 the United States may felicitate themselves that a 
 number and variety of questions affe<5ling the exist- 
 ence of the nation itself, have been peacefully and 
 finally settled by the methods of constitutional arbitra- 
 tion which our organic law affords. The separation of 
 power into three principal departments, the legislative, 
 the executive and the judicial, has rendered necessary 
 a three-fold power of arbitration which is in large 
 measure, but not in all cases, final. 
 
 This seems to have been inevitable. The distribu- 
 tion of power, having its exercise in the first instance 
 with the principal fundlionaries of these departments, 
 makes it essential, whenever a question not previously 
 settled by competent authority is presented, for each 
 to determine for himself how it accords with the Con- 
 stitution. Thus the President will determine an ex- 
 ecutive question, a member of Congress will decide 
 whether a proposed bill is justified by the Constitution, 
 and these decisions, whenever they are within the 
 exclusive control of the President or of Congress, or 
 when they are exclusively of a political charadter, 
 may be revoked only by the department deciding them. 
 For instance, there is no power anywhere to interfere 
 with a decision of Congress to declare war, or to ap- 
 propriate money, or to propose amendments to the Con- 
 stitution by the requisite majority, nor may the power 
 
100 
 
 of the President and Senate to make treaties, when they 
 have been ratified, be questioned. And yet these sev- 
 eral fundlions may adlually be performed in a manner 
 wholly outside the purposes of the Constitution. The 
 constitutional corredlive for such wrongs is the vote 
 of the people at the next appropriate eledlion. The 
 decision of the executive as to the constitutionality of 
 a measure has been found to be at times pradlically 
 irrevocable, even after the decision of the Supreme 
 Court had pronounced otherwise. 
 
 In 1832 President Jackson vetoed the bill to re- 
 charter the Bank of the United States, declaring it to 
 be unconstitutional, when the Supreme Court, through 
 the illustrious Marshall, had held it constitutional, 
 but the unchallenged presence of hundreds of National 
 Banks throughout the country at the present day, 
 demonstrates that the people have sustained the court 
 and reversed the executive. Again, in his inaugural 
 address. President lyincoln, commenting on the Dred 
 Scott decision, uses this language : ' ' The candid citi- 
 zen must confess that if the policy of government upon 
 vital questions affedling the whole people is to be 
 irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, 
 the instant they are made in ordinary litigation be- 
 tween parties in personal adlions, the people will hare 
 ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent 
 
101 
 
 pradlically resigned their government into the hands 
 of that eminent tribunal." The views of President 
 Jackson received the condemnation of many of the 
 first thinkers of the time, and especially of Mr. Clay 
 and Mr. Webster, and Prof. Samuel Tyler, in his 
 " Memoirs of Chief Justice Taney," who rendered the 
 Dred Scott decision, does not hesitate to assail the 
 views of Mr. I^incoln. As to Congress and the judi- 
 ciary, Judge Cooley has presented, I think, the true 
 distindlion with much clearness. He writes : ' ' The 
 boundary between legislative and judicial power is in 
 general clear. To declare what the law is, is the 
 province of the latter ; to declare what it should be, 
 within the limits of the Constitution, pertains to the 
 former, and when the question is, what are those 
 limits, it is the duty of every party called upon to 
 exercise an independent authority, carefully and con- 
 scientiously, on a full consideration of all the light he 
 can obtain to satisfy himself that he does not overstep 
 the bounds which the people, in delegating their 
 authority to him, have set to his power. That is safe, 
 proper and a just rule for every citizen, every oflScer 
 and every tribunal to apply wherever there is a dis- 
 cretion to exercise." I will add that wherever the 
 rights of the citizen may be affedled by a particular gov- 
 ernmental adt, whether it be an adl of Congress or of the 
 
102 
 
 State legislature, or of an executive or judiciary func- 
 tionary, either of the State or of the United States, if 
 it be capable of submission to a court having juris- 
 didlion, the final and common arbiter of the constitu- 
 tional question is the supreme judicial authority of 
 the courts of the United States. In such cases the 
 final decision of that authority is binding upon all the 
 people, all the States and all the departments of the 
 general government. 
 
 It is this magnificent significance of judicial power 
 and usefulness which dignifies our government over 
 that of any other nation. I^ord Chatham declared of 
 the British Constitution : ' ' The poorest man may in 
 his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown ; 
 it may be frail, its roof may shake, the wind may blow 
 through it, the storm may enter, but the king of Eng- 
 land cannot enter ; all his forces dare not cross the 
 threshold of the ruined tenement. " " But, ' ' said Mr. 
 Phelps, in his eulogy on the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, "the great orator could go no further ; 
 he could not say the British Parliament might not 
 enter the home of the subjedl, for all the judges of 
 England are powerless in the face of an adl of Parlia- 
 ment, whatever it may be. It was reserved for the 
 American Constitution to extend the judicial protedlion 
 of personal rights, not only against the rulers of the 
 
103 
 
 people, but against the representatives of the people. 
 And," continued the great American lawyer, "judges 
 will be appointed and will pass away. One genera- 
 tion rapidly succeeds another. But whoever comes 
 and whoever goes, the court remains.. Strong in its 
 traditions, consecrated by its memories, fortified with 
 the steadfast support of the profession that surrounds 
 it, anchored in the abiding trust of its countrymen, 
 the great court will go on — and still go on. Keeping 
 alive through many a century that we shall not see, 
 the light that burns with constant radiance upon the 
 high altar of American constitutional justice. ' ' 
 
 It would be impradlicable to state, even in brief, the 
 innumerable advantages to the country, involving the 
 common defense, the general welfare, and other express 
 or necessarily implied purposes of the Constitution, 
 for which this clause and the inherent power of the 
 nation are the title and authority. To one illustration 
 I will diredl your attention. 
 
 You will remember that in our first ledlure it was 
 stated that the dream of a French empire on this con- 
 tinent vanished with the fall of Quebec, but it is true 
 that the Frenchmen have never been content with 
 that result. Sanguine, and enterprising, they have 
 since then made two determined attempts to establish 
 themselves in America. The last was the disastrous 
 
' 104 
 
 invasion of Mexico by the French armies and the en- 
 thronement of Maximilian. At first hopeful, this 
 ambition of the third Napoleon was defeated. At the 
 expiration of our late war, the government of the Union 
 was moving a powerful army, under the command of 
 General Sheridan, to drive the French out of Mexico, 
 when they hastily took to their ships. The first at- 
 tempt was when Napoleon, then First Consul, extorted 
 from the Spanish crown the retrocession of New Or- 
 leans, and all that territory west of the Mississippi 
 which was termed I^ouisiana, which, by a secret 
 treaty, had been ceded by France to Spain before 1762. 
 The Diredtory had made attradlive offers to the Spanish 
 Government for the retrocession of all this western 
 territory, which the French had originally claimed 
 through the discoveries of their great explorers. This 
 was ever a cherished purpose with the keen and un- 
 scrupulous Talleyrand, and when the military genius 
 of Bonaparte had enabled him to gather the power of 
 the French into his own hands, he compelled the 
 Spaniards to exchange these vast and unascertained 
 possessions, for a trifling Italian principality. This 
 done, American statesmen instantly divined that, with 
 the mouth of the Mississippi under the control of the 
 far-sighted and unscrupulous Corsicau, who had be- 
 come the embodiment of French aspirations, it would 
 
105 
 
 not be long before all of our country west of the AUe- 
 ghanies, watered by navigable streams flowing into 
 that river, would be at the mercy of an alien and 
 antagonistic race. So keen was the sense of danger 
 that Mr. Jefferson, then President, wrote to I/ivingston, 
 our minister in Paris, "The day that France takes 
 possession of New Orleans * * * we must marry 
 ourselves to the British fleet and nation. We must 
 turn all our attention to a maritime force, for which 
 our resources place us on very high ground, and having 
 confirmed and connedled together a power which may 
 render reinforcements of her settlements here impossi- 
 ble to France, make the first cannon which shall be 
 fired in Europe the signal for a tearing up of any set- 
 tlement she may have made, and for holding the two 
 continents of America in sequestration for the common 
 purpose of the united British and American nations. ' ' 
 This is extraordinary language from Mr. Jefferson. 
 The enormous pressure on the presidential mind may 
 be seen, when we reflect that, twenty-six years before, 
 he had written the Declaration of Independence of 
 Great Britain, and only nineteen years before, the 
 treaty of peace with that hostile power had been 
 signed. Hamilton, whose construdlion of the Consti- 
 tution differed toto coelo from that of Jefferson, was 
 equally urgent. Over the nom deplume of ' ' Pericles ' ' 
 
106 
 
 he wrote, " Florida and New Orleans must be seized. 
 We must seize first," he said, "and negotiate after- 
 wards. A war with France may result, but then we 
 can get Great Britain to aid us, and both the army and 
 navy should be increased." You will understand 
 that at this time the peace of Amiens between the 
 First Consul and the British ministry had been signed, 
 but it was easily perceived to be a truce, rather than 
 a settlement of the animosity ever flagrant between 
 those rivals. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson lost no time. In a secret session of 
 Congress he obtained an appropriation of two millions 
 of dollars, and hastened James Monroe to Paris, to 
 buy New Orleans from the First Consul. Congress 
 was strong, at the back of the President. The Fed- 
 eralists favored the immediate seizure of New Orleans, 
 but Mr. Jefferson's party preferred to approve his 
 judgment, and authorized him to call out eighty thou- 
 sand volunteers at his discretion, to build fifteen gun- 
 boats for the American waters, and four ships for the 
 Mediterranean. Monroe was very dear to the people 
 of the west, and very popular in France. He had 
 just completed a most acceptable term as governor of 
 Virginia. To him Jefferson exclaimed as he departed : 
 ' ' On the events of this mission depend the future 
 destinies of this republic, ' ' and Mr. Jefferson was right.. 
 
107 
 
 Now, Mr. Jefferson and his party were of all others 
 the stridlest of stridl construdlionists, and tested by 
 the Virginia rule of interpretation, there was not a 
 line or a word in the Constitutioii which authorized the 
 purchase of new territory. Mr. Jefferson is generally 
 understood to have been the author of the Kentucky 
 Resolutions, which five years before had made the leg- 
 islature of that State declare that it would ' ' tamely sub- 
 mit to undelegated and consequently unlimited powers 
 in no man or body of men on earth," and to resolve 
 further, that such submission " would be to surrender 
 the form of government we have chosen to live under, 
 one deriving its powers from its own will and not from 
 our authority. ' ' He was known to have approved the 
 famous resolutions of John Taylor, of Caroline, which,, 
 in 1793, had expressed " deep regret that a spirit has, 
 in sundry instances, been manifested by the Federal 
 Government to enlarge its powers by forced construc- 
 tion of the Constitutional charter, which defines them, 
 and that indications have appeared of a design to ex- 
 pound certain general phrases so as to consolidate the 
 States by Congress into one sovereignty. ' ' Now, here 
 was a proposition to buy unwilling colonists, to pay 
 millions of the people's money for a territory which 
 would in the future inevitably transfer the center of 
 power from the old Revolutionary States to a locality 
 
108 
 
 then inhabited by an occasional squatter, but mainly 
 by savage beasts and more savage Indians. It did 
 not differ in principle, so far as the Constitution was 
 concerned, from those measures of Napoleon, which 
 were daily changing the boundaries of continental 
 Europe. Jefferson's party, with himself, Madisoti and 
 Gallatiu as leaders, had maintained without ceasing 
 that "the United States Government had the inherent 
 right to do no aifl whatever, but was the creature of 
 the States iu uniou, and its adls, if not resulting from 
 expressly granted power, were no adls at all, but void 
 and not to be obeyed or regarded by the States. ' ' No 
 man saw more clearly than Mr. Jefferson the incon- 
 sistency of his purpose to purchase lyouisiana, with his 
 theories, and so he wrote to Breckenridge on August 
 12, 1802, that "the Constitution has made no pro- 
 vision for our holding foreign territory, still less for 
 incorporating foreign nations into our Union. The 
 Executive in seizing the fugitive occurrence, which so 
 advanced the good of our country, has done an adl 
 beyond the Constitution." He "supposed" that after 
 ratifying the treaty and paying for L,ouisiana he ' ' must 
 then appeal to the nation for an additional article to 
 the Constitution approving and confirming an a.&. 
 which the nation had not previously authorized." I 
 quote his language. He wrote in the same vein to 
 
109 
 
 Paine, but becoming alarmed for the success of the pur- 
 chase, he again wrote on August i8th : "I wrote 
 you on the 12th instant on the subjedl of Ivouisiana 
 and the constitutional provision which might be neces- 
 sary for it. A letter received yesterday shows that 
 nothing must be said on that subjedl which may give a 
 pretext for retradling, but that we shall do sub silentio 
 what shall be found necessary. Be so good, there- 
 fore, as to consider that part of my letter confidential." 
 To his cabinet he said : "I infer that the less we say 
 about constitutional difiBculties the better, and that 
 what is necessary for surmounting them must be done 
 sub silentio. ' ' 
 
 In the presence, however, of the nation's danger the 
 American statesmen, as American statesmen have 
 ever done, wholly refused to be controlled by the 
 narrow subleties of the stri(5l construdlionists. Gal- 
 latin, Secretary of the Treasury, wrote to his great 
 leader : " To me it would appear that the United 
 States, first, as a nation, have an inherent right to 
 acquire territory ; second, that whenever that acquisi- 
 tion is by treaty, the same constituted authorities in 
 whom the treaty making power is vested, have a con- 
 stitutional right to san<ftion the acquisition." And, 
 when Jefferson drew up an amendment to the Consti- 
 tution which he sent to his cabinet, Gallatin took no 
 
110 
 
 notice of it, except to acknowledge receiving it. 
 Robert Smith, also of the cabinet, dissuaded Jefferson 
 from ' ' grafting so strange a shoot upon the Constitu- 
 tion." Wilson Carey Nicholas, of Virginia, wrote 
 him a letter, which for national dodlrine might have 
 come from Washington or Hamilton. Indeed, it was 
 an awful day for the theorists, who deny to the gov- 
 ernment of the United States those substantial and 
 essential powers inherent to the nation, within the 
 bounds of that sovereignty for which it was designed. 
 In the debate which ensued in Congress, Jefferson's 
 closest followers trampled on the dodlrines of stridl 
 construdlion, which had been as dear to them as the 
 dodtrine of apostolic succession to the Pope. John 
 Randolph, of Roanoke, had never hesitated to declare 
 his willingness to resist by force, any transgression of 
 the executive, Congress or the judiciary, beyond the 
 express delegations of the instrument. He now treated 
 the lyouisiana purchase as a mere question of bound- 
 ary. He said the power to settle disputes as to limits 
 was indispensable ; it existed in the Constitution and 
 involved the power of extending boundaries, an argu- 
 ment which did not distinguish between the adjust- 
 ment of a line and the acquisition of a mighty empire. 
 Nicholson, of Maryland, a disciple of Jefferson, de- 
 clared, ' ' A sovereign nation has the right to acquire 
 
Ill 
 
 new territory." I quote his language, and he added, 
 ' ' The right must exist somewhere. It is essential to 
 independent sovereignty. As it was prohibited to the 
 States the power was necessarily vested in the United 
 States." Caesar A. Rodney, of Delaware, who had 
 defeated the Federalist, Bayard, appealed to the gen- 
 eral welfare clause. Any reference to this clause had 
 been regarded by the strid; construdlionists as little 
 short of treason, ' ' but, ' ' said the Delaware senator, ' ' I 
 cannot perceive why within the fair meaning of this 
 general provision, is not included the power of in- 
 creasing our territory if necessary for the general wel- 
 fare or common defense," and he clinched his argu- 
 ment by quoting the clause we are now discussing, 
 which gives to Congress authority ' ' to make laws 
 which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into 
 execution the foregoing power and all other powers 
 vested by this Constitution in the government of the 
 United States or in any department or oflScer thereof. ' ' 
 No Jeffersonian Democrat or Republican, as they were 
 then called, questioned what Randolph, Nicholson 
 and Rodney had said. Randolph, in conclusion, in- 
 deed affirmed that the United States Government could 
 lawfully incorporate Great Britain or France into the 
 Union, so far as the Constitution was concerned, but 
 exclaimed, "We cannot, because we cannot." The 
 
112 
 
 upshot of this debate was that every speaker, without 
 regard to party, recognized the truth that the United 
 States had the power to acquire new territory either 
 by conquest or by treaty, although no syllable on that 
 topic appears in the Constitution, and Congress de- 
 liberately ignored the several propositions of Mr. Jef- 
 ferson to amend the instrument in order to ratify the 
 purchase of I^ouisiana. 
 
 In the meantime Napoleon had determined to sell 
 Mr. Jefferson not only New Orleans, which he had 
 sent Monroe to buy, but all of l/ouisiana. "I re- 
 nounce Louisiana," he exclaimed to Marbois. " It is 
 not only New Orleans I cede, it is the whole colony 
 without reserve. ' ' The truth is Napoleon knew that 
 war with Great Britain was inevitable, and he also 
 knew that the British navy would at once add the 
 lyouisiana country to the British possessions. His de- 
 termination, however, was very unpopular in France, 
 and only the members of Bonaparte's family dared 
 protest. Ivucien Bonaparte, in his Memoirs, gives an 
 amusing account of the family interview on the sub- 
 jedl. I,ucien himself had negotiated the treaty of re- 
 trocession with Spain, and was very proud of the fadl. 
 He was deeply mortified when his brother Joseph told 
 him that the General had determined to sell Louisiana. 
 Next morning he went to the Tuilleries, was admitted 
 
113 
 
 and found Napoleon in his bath, the water of which was 
 opaque with eau de cologne. Finally Joseph Bona- 
 parte came in, and Napoleon announced his decision 
 to sell l/ouisiana and asked I^ucien to say what he 
 thought of it. "I flatter myself, ' ' said lyucien, ' ' that 
 the chambers will not give their consent. " " You 
 flatter yourself, ' ' repeated Napoleon in a tone of sur- 
 prise, then murmured in a lower voice : "That is 
 precious, in truth." An angry colloquy ensued be- 
 tween the brothers until Napoleon, enraged, cried : 
 ' ' You are insolent, I ought ' ' — then threw himself 
 violently back into the bath with a force which sent a 
 mass of perfumed water into Joseph's flushed face, 
 drenching him and I/Ucien, who had the wit to quote 
 in a theatrical tone the words which Virgil put in the 
 mouth of Neptune reproving the wave, " Quos ego," 
 etc. Between the water and the wit, the three Bona- 
 partes recovered their tempers, while a valet, who was 
 present, overcome by fear, had fainted and fallen on 
 the floor. Finally the treaty was signed. It will per- 
 haps be centuries before its value to the United States 
 can be fully appreciated. The price paid was eleven 
 and a quarter million dollars, but in addition to this 
 the United States Government assumed the debts due 
 by France to American citizens, estimated at three 
 million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 
 
114 
 
 making fifteen million dollars in all as the price of the 
 purchase. "You have made a noble bargain for 
 yourselves," said Talleyrand to the American com- 
 missioners, "and I suppose you will make the most 
 of it. ' ' The astute diplomatist was right. From this 
 territory, thus purchased, the Americans have carved 
 many mighty States. From the vantage ground it 
 gave, they have extended their dominions over the 
 wonderland of the continent, to the shores of the 
 Pacific and into those hyperborean regions where 
 across the dark and restless waters of the Arctic sea 
 the Asiatic possessions of Russia may be seen. By 
 the exercise of the same power, our country has ac- 
 quired the I/and of Flowers, the Riviera of the New 
 World, the noble peninsular of Florida, and Texas 
 that empire within the empire, whose swift advance- 
 ment and boundless wealth challenge the credulity of 
 mankind. B3' virtue of the same power, the daring 
 energy of our countrymen, rivaling the volcanic forces 
 which entombed it, have been enabled to appropriate 
 the golden wealth of California and pour its shining 
 opulence into the lap of America. These, and in- 
 finitely more than these, have been the achievements 
 of our people under the broad, benign, and national 
 interpretation of the powers of our government. And 
 our Union has gone onward, right onward, in its 
 
115 
 
 career of strength and glory, until now it has attained 
 that proud station among the nations when its decis- 
 ion of any question which may arise, between the 
 nations of the Old World, and the peoples of these 
 northern and southern continents which Columbus 
 discovered, is shown to possess the force and effedl of 
 international law. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 The subjoined correspondence will sufficiently 
 describe the occasion on which the following address 
 was delivered. It is believed to be the first formal cel- 
 ebration of the Fourth of July held in Georgia after 
 the expiration of the Civil War. [See Preface.] 
 
 Augusta, Ga., May 15, 1897. 
 Hon. Emory Speer, Macon, Ga. : 
 
 Dear Sir: — We have recently organized in this city a 
 society known as the Jefferson Club. Its objedts are to " ex- 
 tend a knowledge of our system of government ; foster a just 
 appreciation of the blessings afforded by our institutions ; 
 inculcate a wider comprehension of the rights and duties of 
 citizenship and promote love of country." We desire to 
 observe the next Fourth of July by ceremonies, which we are 
 anxious to be altogether worthy. It is necessary that we have 
 an oration befitting the occasion. We are anxious that this, 
 our first celebration, should be an eminent success and we are 
 assured that you can very largely contribute to this realiza- 
 tion. At a meeting of our Executive Committee, composed 
 
117 
 
 of the undersigned, held to-day, you were promptly and 
 unanimously invited to be the orator of the day. With the 
 cordial hope that you will, at your earliest convenience, 
 signify your acceptance, we are, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 J. C. C. Bi,ACK, President. 
 
 J. R. I/AMAR, 
 
 Gbo. T. Barnbs, 
 Jos. B. Gumming, 
 Patrick Wai^h, 
 
 D. B. Dybr, 
 Frank G. Ford, 
 
 E. B. Hook. 
 
 Chambers United States Judge, 
 
 Macon, Ga., May 19, 1897. 
 
 Honorable J. C. C. Black, President, Messrs. J. R. Lamar, 
 Geo. T. Barnes, Jos. B. Cumming, Patrick Walsh, D. B. 
 Dyer, Frank G. Ford, and E. B. Hook, Members Execu- 
 tive Committee Jefferson Club, Augusta, Ga. : 
 
 Gentlemen : — In reply to your letter of the 15th instant, 
 inviting me to aid in the celebration of Independence Day, so 
 propitiously purposed by your Society, I write at the first 
 opportunity that I accept your invitation with great pleasure. 
 
 Fortunate is the purpose of thoughtful and high-minded 
 men in your noble city, with its stirring Revolutionary memo- 
 ries, to devote themselves to the elevated objedts of your 
 
118 
 
 Society ; felicitous the design to celebrate the glorious anni- 
 versary of the day which witnessed the birth of our nation in 
 the adoption of the immortal Declaration. May it be true in 
 the bright future of our country, whose mission for civiliza- 
 tion and free government is scarcely begun, that every Ameri- 
 can community will imitate your example. 
 
 I am indeed grateful that you have afforded me the privi- 
 lege of participating in your patriotic endeavor, and remain, 
 gentlemen, with great respedl, 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 Emory Speek. 
 
LET US REVIVE THE AMERICAN SPIRIT. 
 
 Mr. President and Fellow Citizens : 
 
 This occasion and these ceremonies are inspira- 
 tional. The opportunity of presence and participation 
 would seem inestimable to the sentient and the pa- 
 triotic. Let me certify that by one, at least, it will be 
 cherished with pride and pleasure, with ' ' miser care, ' ' 
 while memory may perform its fundlions, and dis- 
 tinguish the outlines of life's happiest events. In 
 obedience to the venerable custom of a glorious past, 
 the sons and daughters have assembled to celebrate in 
 the manner of the fathers, our country's natal day. 
 And , sir, the auspices are most propitious. The sacred 
 augur of ancient Rome, when his piercing eyes swept 
 the Templum in the sky, neither from the winged in- 
 habitants of the upper air, nor from the transverse 
 dartings of Jove, might gather an augury so hopeful 
 for the Republic, as may be seen in the unselfish 
 patriotism, the ennobling Americanism, of these high- 
 minded men who have formed the Jefferson Club, and 
 
120 
 
 who have promoted anew the celebration of Independ- 
 ence Day, to fan into lucent and benignant flame, that 
 love of country, whose steady warmth the storms of 
 civil war may have smothered, but could never extin- 
 guish. And, sir, if the occasion and the purpose is 
 inspirational, not less inspiring is the environment. 
 Here, daughters of Georgia, whose beauty and youth 
 personify the sister-states of the Great Republic, recall 
 the "white-robed choir," who on the battlefield of 
 Trenton, as he journeyed to his first inauguration 
 greeted and charmed the Father of his Country. 
 Here the soil on which we stand is historic. This 
 day one hundred and sixteen years and one month 
 ago, after merciless and desperate fighting, here, 
 within the compass of my voice, there was achieved 
 a signal and glorious triumph of the American arms. 
 The Grecian peasant, dulled by centuries of tyranny, 
 may till the soil of Marathon, or bear his burden over 
 Thermopylae, and think not of Miltiades or I,eonidas, 
 and go unconscious that there were wrought deeds 
 and achieved fame which History, proud of the 
 sacred treasure, marches with to latest times. Not 
 thus with the immortal past, and with the immortal 
 names of our nation of kindred men. I^et us then, 
 on this day, first briefly recount those historic events 
 which are incident to your famous city, and which 
 
121 
 
 should impart to it the renown of being the only 
 fortified post held by the British, save Yorktown, 
 which, by the valor and military skill of our country- 
 men, was reduced by regular approaches and the 
 garrison made prisoners of war. 
 
 It is hard for us, in these days, to conceive that 
 Augusta, now the pride of Georgia, was then as a 
 thorn rankling in its side. It was then the fortress of 
 our powerful and implacable foes, and gloomy, indeed, 
 were the fortunes of our country when a few heroic 
 men determined to wrest it from the British. Lord 
 Cornwallis, commanding the royal forces in the 
 South, had issued to his subordinates a sanguinary 
 order, which was a flagrant violation of the rules of 
 civilized war. "The inhabitants of the provinces," 
 the order ran, " who have subscribed and taken part 
 in this revolt should be punished with the utmost 
 rigor; all those who will not turn out shall be im- 
 prisoned and their whole property taken from them or 
 destroyed. I have ordered in the most positive man- 
 ner that every militiaman who has borne arms with 
 us, and afterwards joined the enemy, shall be imme- 
 diately hanged. I desire you will take the most rigor- 
 ous measures to punish the rebels in the distridl in 
 which you command, and that you obey, in the stridl- 
 >est manner, the direcflions I have given in this letter 
 
122 
 
 relative to the inhabitants in this country. ' ' A copy of 
 these instrudlions were diredled to Colonel Brown, wha- 
 was in command of Augusta. Just before the war 
 broke out, Brown had been a resident of this town, and 
 his conversation was objedlionable to the patriots. He 
 had been arrested, tried, convidled of treasonable senti- 
 ments, tarred and feathered, and paraded about the 
 town in a cart drawn by three mules. This treatment 
 seems to have exasperated Brown, and permanently 
 embittered his feelings toward the American patriots- 
 Placed in command here, he had sequestrated the prop- 
 erty of the inhabitants, he had banished their families^ 
 beyond the limits of Georgia, and the day after the 
 barbarous instrudlions of Cornwallis were received in 
 Augusta, Brown caused to be taken from the jail, and 
 hanged, five unfortunate prisoners of war. This bar- 
 barity not only failed to intimidate the patriots, but 
 fired them with implacable resentment. 
 
 A county in Georgia yet famous for its spirited and 
 high-minded people, was the hottest of all the hot-beds- 
 of patriotic sentiment. By the Tories it was called 
 ' ' The Hornets' Nest. ' ' It was the county of Wilkes^ 
 before then named for John Wilkes, that famous and 
 somewhat exasperating English patriot, the editor of 
 The North Briton, and the champion of free repre- 
 sentation in the British Parliament. Its county town 
 
123 
 
 then, as now, was Washington, named before the 
 Revolution in honor of the young Virginian colonel, 
 whose gallantry at Braddock's defeat had won the 
 applause of two continents. In Wilkes county. Col. 
 Elijah Clarke now mustered three hundred and fifty 
 men. Colonel McCall, with a small party, joined him, 
 and they moved rapidly upon Augusta, which was 
 reached on the 14th of September, 1780. The Indian 
 allies of the British, firing upon the Americans, gave 
 the alarm to the garrison. Brave, though brutal, 
 Brown, leaving the lower forts to their fates, threw a 
 strong party in the White House, standing a mile and 
 a half from where we are now assembled. The In- 
 dians, with deadly aim, fired upon the Americans from 
 the fringe of trees on the river bank. Reinforcements 
 were received by Brown from across the river during 
 the night, but the Americans, with the utmost tenacity 
 maintained the attack. Before daylight on the i6th 
 they had succeeded in routing the Indians from their 
 natural fortress made by the bluff on the river, and 
 had successfully cut off the water supply from the 
 British at the White House. The constant fire of the 
 American rifles had slain and wounded many of the 
 garrison, and the wounded suffered the most exquisite 
 pangs of thirst. Brown himself had been shot through 
 both thighs, but the fierce courage of his cruel and 
 
124 
 
 savage temper never faltered. He announced his fixed 
 resolve to defend his post to the last extremity, and 
 finally the American commander, advised by his scouts 
 that Colonel Cruger was swiftly coming with a large 
 force to relieve the beleaguered garrison, raised the 
 siege and retreated. The American loss was sixty 
 killed and wounded. And now occurred an instance 
 of barbarity an eternal disgrace to the British arms. 
 Captain Ashby, of the American forces, and twenty- 
 eight private soldiers, too desperately wounded to be 
 removed, were left behind and were captured. This 
 brave ofiicer and twelve of his comrades were car- 
 ried into the White House, where Brown was lying 
 wounded, and for his murderous pleasure, were hanged 
 from the staircase, that his sufferings might be pal- 
 liated by the spedlacle of their humiliating death. 
 Seven others, two being youths of fifteen and seven- 
 teen, all bearing familiar Georgia names, were hanged 
 on an extemporized gallows. Other prisoners were 
 delivered to the Indians, and at a spot where their 
 cries of agony and the demoniacal yells of their savage 
 torturers might have been heard from where we stand, 
 were put to death with all the horrid features of Indian 
 malice. Seventy warriors had fallen under the deadly 
 fire of the patriots, and thus did Brown atrociously 
 revenge them. 
 
125 
 
 Jt is proper that I should say that these fadls are veri- 
 fied by that admirable work, the History of Georgia, 
 by the late Col. Charles C. Jones, Jr., whose untiring 
 and disinterested literary labors, were as honorable to 
 himself as they are valuable to this city of his home 
 and his love, rich in the glorious traditions of its 
 romantic and heroic past. 
 
 It is true that at no time during the seven years of 
 the Revolution, and in no part of the thirteen States 
 was the conflidl so fierce, or the hostility of the con- 
 tending parties so unrelenting as in the period of 
 which I speak, and in the Georgia and Carolina coun- 
 try contiguous to Augusta. Agricultural labors were 
 suspended, innumerable homes were destroyed by the 
 torch of the Tories. Finally, the women and the 
 children, bearing their humble and pathetic belong- 
 ings, assembled, a pitiable gathering, and implored 
 the prote<a;ion of the distressed but undaunted Ameri- 
 cans. The bravest are the tenderest, and their prayers 
 were answered. Escorted by the stalwart riflemen of 
 Clarke, like the Helvetii of classic story, they took 
 their way northward. For eleven days they jour- 
 neyed, threading primeval forests, ascending wooded 
 vales watered by crystal streams and glowing with 
 the enchanting colors of autumn. They toiled over 
 lofty mountains clothed with the balsam and the 
 
126 
 
 rhododendron, and finally received a loving welcome 
 from the noble Tennesseeans, whose homes and farms 
 lie along the beautiful and fertile valleys of the Wau- 
 tauga and Nolichucky, while the vigorous manhood of 
 that romantic region was even then hastening to deal 
 a death blow to the Tories on the wooded summits of 
 Kings Mountain. And, thank God, it was not to be 
 long before the suffering women and children of Geor- 
 gia could return to their homes ; homes of peace and 
 plenty, the abodes of liberty and love. It was not to 
 be long before our country, with no hostile foot upon 
 its soil, its people in the enjoyment of that independ- 
 ence we celebrate to-day, entered upon a swift and 
 steady progress upon all the paths of civilization, the 
 phenomenon of the age, the marvel of statesmen and 
 statisticians of every land, blessing seventy millions 
 of people with the largest share of personal liberty of 
 which history affords the account, and our Union, 
 with a plenitude of comfort and contentment unsur- 
 passed by any other nation lighted by the sun in its 
 beneficent progress around the world. And, oh, ani- 
 mating thought, here, on Georgia's soil, the culminat- 
 ing triumph was won, the last decisive blow, save 
 Yorktown, was discharged upon the merciless soldiery 
 of an obstinate and a demented monarch. When 
 Lord Cornwallis marched northward on his Virginia 
 
127 
 
 campaign, to terminate at Yorktown, General Greene, 
 commanding the Southern Department, determined 
 to reduce Augusta. The intrepid Clarke being dis- 
 abled by smallpox, I/ieut-Col. Micajah Williamson 
 assumed command of the patriot forces in Georgia. 
 Colonel Baker soon joined him with the militia from 
 South Georgia. Captains Dunn and Irwin recruited 
 a small force in Burke county, and Col. I<eroy 
 Hammond and Maj. James Jackson brought fight- 
 ing men from Carolina. It is delightful to refledl 
 how these Revolutionary names are yet preserved in 
 our homogeneous Georgia Americanism. A Micajah 
 Williamson lived in Jackson county not long ago, 
 "Old Man Micajah," he was called. The names 
 of the Bakers, the Dunns, the Irwins and Hammonds 
 are as familiar as household words. Then, also, 
 there are, and have been, multitudinous descend- 
 ants of Major Jackson, soldier, Governor of Augusta, 
 representative in Congress, Senator and Governor of 
 Georgia, a doughty warrior, who inscribed his name 
 on the temple of fame with the same vigorous distindl- 
 ness with which he slashed the physiognomies of 
 Tarleton's troopers or plunged his sabre into the mid- 
 riffs of Brown's Florida outlaws. He it was, it is said, 
 in after years, became the instrument of Heaven to burn 
 with celestial fire the legislative record of the Yazoo 
 
128 
 
 fraud. He was gallant, vigorous and dramatic always. 
 An irreverent historian has published of this great 
 Georgian that when, as a member of the First Con- 
 gress, he spoke in the House, the Senate was com- 
 pelled to close its windows in order to exclude the 
 volume of sound, but we may perhaps conclude that 
 this animadversion is due to the fadt that no Congress- 
 man from the historian's State could rival the trumpet 
 tones of Jackson, and the historian himself is possibly 
 inflamed by that envy ' ' which hates the excellence it 
 cannot reach. ' ' The far-sounding voice of Major Jack- 
 son was now to be of inestimable value. We are told 
 by the historian that the Georgia militia, wearied with 
 war, were about to depart for their homes, when the 
 major, eloquent of speech as he was daring in battle, 
 addressed them in an exhilarating oration, which re- 
 vived their sinking spirits and recalled them to their 
 duty. May I digress to say it has been ever true that 
 the citizen soldiery of our country, when they assume 
 the panoply of war, lose none of their fondness for 
 the captivating genius of the orator. What member 
 of his famous corps fails to recall the acclamations of 
 that incomparable infantry, when the gallant Gordon 
 spoke. And are we not all familiar with the renown 
 of the soldier orator from the ' ' Dark and Bloody 
 Ground," now Georgia's adopted son, the honored 
 
129 
 
 President of the Jefferson Club ? Do we not know how 
 his unpremeditated sentences were wont to enliven 
 and charm his comrades of that trebly adventurous 
 stock, which crossed the Atlantic to Virginia, and the 
 mountains to Kentucky, and "left the old Kentucky 
 home far away ' ' to fight for the South with all the 
 desperate valor of his heroic race, but now in a nobler, 
 sweeter strain pleads for the love and the glory of our 
 reunited land? 
 
 But now the hopes of the patriots, already high,. 
 were to be brightened. Now came from many vidlo- 
 ries over British and Tory foes, the seasoned veterans 
 of Gen. Andrew Pickens, and the famous lyCgion of 
 Ivieutenant Colonel I^ee, the renowned " I/ight Horse 
 Harry." These distinguished officers were ordered 
 by General Greene, to the dangerous duty of taking 
 Augusta, and of destroying the fierce and desperate 
 corps commanded by Brown. They were both patriots 
 of the highest renown. Pickens was that irreconcila- 
 ble contradidlion, I may say that lusus naturae, a 
 Puritan from South Carolina. ' ' He was a patriot in 
 thought and deed. ' ' His features, like those of Well- 
 ington and Caesar, must have been, to quote the words 
 of Cowper, "terribly arched and aquiline," for, to this 
 day, a mountain near the northern boundary of Geor- 
 gia, resembling in its contour the beak of the eagle, is 
 
130 
 
 called " Pickens' Nose." He was voted a sword by- 
 Congress in honor of his soldierly bearing at the battle 
 of Cowpens, where the close and deadly fire of the 
 Georgians and Carolinians under his command had 
 merited the plaudits of General Morgan himself, the 
 veteran commander of Washington's famous riflemen. 
 I/ieut. Col. Harry I,ee was perhaps the most famous 
 cavalry officer of the Continental army, and the con- 
 templation of his charadler and career will ever 
 awaken the liveliest sensibility. He was the father of 
 Gen. Robert E. I,ee, and his illustrious son, whose 
 military and personal charadler will, to the remotest 
 times, remain a common heritage of the American 
 people, has written a brief biography of his father. 
 Colonel Ivce was a student of Princeton College, a 
 famous nursery of statesmen and soldiers of the Revo- 
 lution, under that Dr. Witherspoon, whose elevated 
 charadler, noble patriotism and lucid eloquence con- 
 tributed in the Continental Congress, to the adoption 
 of the Declaration of Independence. The young Vir- 
 ginian, as we learn from the Memoirs by his son, was 
 preparing himself for the profession of the law, and 
 was about to embark for England to pursue that study, 
 when the commencement of hostilities with the mother 
 country changed his destiny. Shortly after the battle 
 of I/exington, at the age of nineteen, he entered the 
 
131 
 
 army as captain of cavalry. He took part in the bat- 
 tles of Brandywine, Germantown and Springfield, and 
 others. General I^ee writes that he early became a 
 favorite with Washington. His biographer, however, 
 does not state, what is nevertheless true, that the young 
 captain of cavalry was the son of l/ucy Grymes, " the 
 Ivowland Beauty," who made the first and perhaps a 
 permanent impression on the susceptible heart of the 
 great Virginian. This, of course, was before Wash- 
 ington had met and married the charming little widow, 
 Martha Curtis, and while his constancy to Lady 
 Washington, as she was ever called, has never been 
 impugned, we may perhaps believe that ofttimes on 
 the long and weary march, or in the silent watches of 
 the night, the youthful and manly beauty, the engag- 
 ing vivacity and heroic daring of I/ight Horse Harry, 
 brought back to the pensive memory of the Father of 
 his Country, the beauty and the charm of those fea- 
 tures that love used to wear. But it was not to the 
 romantic nature of his commander-in-chief, or to the 
 indulgence of that great man in the memory of joys 
 that were gone, that Wght Horse Harry was indebted 
 for his military distindlion. He was always near the 
 enemy, in command of outposts, leading scouting 
 parties, and in all duty requiring coolness, address, 
 and enterprise. So annoying was he to the British 
 
132 
 
 garrison in Philadelphia, that while the Continental 
 army was stationed at Valley Forge, they made a spe- 
 cial effort to capture or to kill him, which his daring 
 and skill defeated. When the war had gloriously 
 ended, he represented the Old Dominion in Congress, 
 and was the governor of that noble commonwealth. 
 Deputed by the Congress of the United States to pro- 
 nounce an eulogy on the dead Washington, he uttered 
 of his immortal friend and commander-in-chief those 
 undying words, ' ' First in war, first in peace and 
 first in the hearts of his countrymen." 
 
 But, although Colonel Lee has written with his 
 sword his autobiography on many pages of Revolu- 
 tionary history, his principal military achievement 
 was the capture of Augusta. On the way with his 
 Legion from Ninety-Six to join the besiegers, he re- 
 ceived intelligence that there had just arrived at Fort 
 Galphin, about twelve miles below Augusta, on the 
 Carolina side, the annual present which King George 
 bestowed upon his Indian allies. This deposit was 
 very valuable, especially to the patriot forces, who 
 were badly supplied. It is stated by Colonel Lee, in 
 his Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department, 
 that his force was greatly exhausted by the extreme 
 heat of the scorching sun, and were "without any 
 liquid whatsoever to revive sinking nature," and 
 
133 
 
 although the post was guarded by two companies of 
 British infantry, its treasure was swiftly captured. It 
 consisted of powder and ball, muskets and rifles, salt, 
 blankets, with sundry small articles, and a liberal 
 supply of Jamaica rum. ' ' Never, ' ' writes I/ight Horse 
 Harry, " was a beginning more auspicious." 
 
 After securing this treasure, I^ee, with the Legion, 
 pushed on to join Pickens, at Augusta. Crossing the 
 river at the Sand Bar Ferry, he moved through the 
 forests, which then covered the plain on which the 
 city stands, and took his position on the American 
 lines to the west of the town, then containing only a 
 few hundred inhabitants. Fort Cornwallis, the prin- 
 cipal fortification of the British, occupied the ground 
 where that venerable and sacred edifice, St. Paul's 
 Episcopal church, now stands. Another fort, called 
 Grierson, in honor of the Tory ofiicer who commanded 
 it, was located half a mile to the westward on the 
 northwestern border of a lagoon or drain, which con- 
 nedled Beaver Dam creek with the Savannah river, 
 and close to the bank of the river. The intrepid 
 Brown commanded in person in Fort Cornwallis. 
 This work was judiciously construdled, and with its 
 ramparts and batteries, manned by his ruflSan, but 
 veteran troops, was pronounced by the experienced 
 American commanders to be secure from assault. 
 
134 
 
 Colonel lyce, who was of the regular army, and more 
 observant of the honors, and pundlilious of the pro- 
 fession of arms than the partisan officers, Clarke and 
 Pickens, forwarded to Brown, by the hands of Colonel 
 Eggleston, a regular Continental officer, a formal de- 
 mand for the surrender of the post. His messenger 
 was received with scornful silence. The proud Vir- 
 ginian writes that he was ' ' considerably ruffled by 
 this affrontive rejedlion of his proffered negotiations. ' ' 
 He determined to waste no more civilities upon 
 Brown, and while his troops still concealed, were still 
 engaged in taking refreshments, he examined the 
 ground, devised the plan of attack, which was at 
 once adopted by Pickens and by Clarke, who had 
 now rejoined his command, and immediately made. 
 Perceiving that the loyalists at Fort Grierson were 
 separated from the regulars at Fort Cornwallis, Colonel 
 lyce moved down the southern margin of the lagoon 
 along what is now Cumming street, to anticipate Brown 
 if he should fly to the assistance of Grierson, while 
 the dire<3; attack on the western fort, about the site of 
 the Riverside Mills, was entrusted to the troops of 
 Pickens and Clarke. The plan was felicitous, and its 
 execution was fortunate. The Georgians and Caroli- 
 nians swept to the attack. With enthusiasm and fury, 
 born of innumerable outrages by the cruel wretches 
 
135 
 
 behind the entrenchments, the deadly marksmen of 
 Pickens and Clarke, speedily mastered the fire of the 
 Tories and expelled them from the fortress. In the 
 desperate effort to make their way along the river bank 
 to Fort Cornwallis, they were smitten by the avenging 
 rifles of the Americans. Thirty were killed and forty- 
 five were wounded and captured, and among the lat- 
 ter was Grierson, the Tory commander, himself. 
 
 Colonel I<ee, trained under the magnanimous eye of 
 Washington, and accustomed to observe all the hu- 
 manities of war, deplores the fadl that Colonel Grier- 
 son, after his surrender, was shot dead by a Georgia 
 rifleman. Indeed, he offered a reward for the appre- 
 hension of the party by whom it was done, but with- 
 out avail. He who aimed the shot was said to be one of 
 the sons of Mr. Alexander, a venerable patriot, who, 
 in his seventy-eighth year, had been arrested by order 
 of Colonel Grierson, chained and dragged at the tail 
 of a cart forty miles in two days, and when he sought 
 to obtain rest for his feeble limbs by leaning against 
 the vehicle, had been shamefully scourged by the Tory 
 driver. Time forbids that I should give in detail the 
 progress of the siege ; with what bull-dog determina- 
 tion Brown held his works ; with what fierce sorties he 
 attempted to check the progress of the besiegers ; with 
 what unflinching valor the Maryland troops of the 
 
136 
 
 I/Cgioa, under brave Captain Handy, at the point of 
 bayonet, drove him from the trenches, and hurled his 
 bleeding columns back into their own lines ; how 
 Brown repeated the effort ; how Major Rudolph, with 
 the North Carolina battalion, in a hand to hand com- 
 bat with bayonet and butt of gun again repelled the 
 desperate enterprise of the beleaguered garrison. Of 
 this Captain Rudolph, it is interesting to know that 
 years afterward, when a solitary old man, dwelling in 
 North Carolina, he was by thousands inaccurately be- 
 lieved to be the disguised Marshal Ney, Napoleon's 
 "bravest of the brave." Step by step the Conti- 
 nentals were drawing their deadly coil around their 
 desperate foemen. It is related that it was almost 
 certain death for a member of the garrison to ex- 
 pose himself even for a moment. And when finally 
 the skillful soldier who was diredling the operations, 
 by the eredlion of the famous Mayham tower, and 
 by placing a six-pounder thereon, succeeding in 
 searching every part of the fort with its deadly mis- 
 siles, after an investment of about five weeks and a 
 siege of fifteen days, a capitulation was signed. On 
 the morning of the 5th of June, 1781, the British 
 garrison marched out, and Major Rudolph had the 
 honor to take possession of Fort Cornwallis. Augusta 
 had fallen, and King George held no part of our 
 
137 
 
 commonwealth, save that covered by the guns of 
 his ships anchored in the river at Savannah. 
 
 This imperfedl narrative has comprehended the 
 deeds of many whose descendants are before me, and 
 pardon me, sir, if I say that with those gallant Caro- 
 linians who swarmed over the parapets of Fort Grier- 
 son, was the ancestor of him who has been honored 
 with the privilege to speak to-day of those heroic times. 
 
 Not remotely, but here, under the canopy of Geor- 
 gia's sky, here where now as then the eternal hills of 
 Carolina and Georgia form an amphitheater where the 
 nations might have witnessed, here where now, as 
 then, the ' ' sweet south ' ' woos the woodlands, and the 
 fields, and the broad Savannah bears its silent volume 
 to the sea, here, as the hearts of our embattled sires 
 bounded with exultation and their eyes filled with 
 tears of gratitude and joy, stalwart sons of freedom 
 unfurled the gorgeous colors of our country above the 
 battle-grimed ramparts of Fort Cornwallis, and the 
 meteor flag of England, vanquished, fell, to rise no 
 more in vidlory on Georgia soil. 
 
 How fitting then is the resolve of this people, that 
 this day, consecrated as it is to the genius of the Revolu- 
 tion, shall be their annual and crowning festival. Such 
 celebrations impart tone to the public mind and con- 
 science. It is written by the Roman historian, Sallust : 
 
138 
 
 "Often have I heard that Quintus Maximus, Publius 
 Scipio, and other renowned men of our commonwealth 
 used to say that when they beheld the images of their 
 ancestors, they felt their minds vehemently excited to 
 virtue ; the recoUedlions of their great adlions kindled 
 a generous flame in their breasts, not to be quelled till 
 they also by virtue had acquired equal fame and glory. ' ' 
 Shall we not then commemorate the heroic days of 
 old, the heroic men of the past, for the emulation of 
 our youth, for the inspiration of our strong manhood,. 
 for the pride and satisfadlion of that venerable age 
 with whose declining years a kindly Providence has 
 bestowed the pleasures of memory? Shall we not 
 verify the prophetic thought of John Adams, given 
 expression in the burning words of Webster : ' ' We 
 shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When 
 we are in our graves, our children will honor it, they 
 will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festivity, 
 with bonfires and illuminations. On the annual re- 
 turn they will shed tears, copious and gushing tears,, 
 not of subjedlion and slavery, not of agony and dis- 
 tress, but of exultation, of gratitude and joy." 
 
 Mr. President, the catholicon for our country is the 
 old American spirit. With that all things else will 
 be added unto us. There is a fervor, in the Ameri- 
 can imagination, relating to all matters of a patriotic 
 
139 
 
 charadler, which is the source of enormous national 
 power. Millions have thrilled at the sweet thunder 
 of Patrick Henry, in the old church in Richmond : 
 "We have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we 
 have prostrated ourselves at the foot of the throne, and 
 implored its interposition, but all in vain. We must 
 fight. I repeat it, sir, we must fight. An appeal to 
 arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us. ' ' 
 Then towering with his sinewy form like a giant before 
 the gleaming eyes of the patriot Virginians, and gather- 
 ing all the music and power of that marvelous voice, 
 in one sentence to ring that diapason of the ages to 
 come : "I know not what others may think, but as 
 for me, give liberty or give me death." What foun- 
 tains of tears have gushed in proud and sweet love of 
 country, inspired by the noble and indignant lyric 
 thrown ofi by the genius of Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
 when some bureaucrat proposed to break up Old Iron- 
 sides. What millions of strong American lads, aye, 
 and lassies, too, have been moved to high resolve 
 while their young hearts were flaming with its melody 
 and its fire. And do not strong men glow with a pa- 
 triot's pride when it is remembered how, under the 
 gallant Hull, in thirty minutes her broadsides dis- 
 mantled and cut to pieces the fine British frigate, 
 Guerriere, and how her gallant commander reported : 
 
140 
 
 "It gives me pleasure to say that, from the smallest 
 boy in the ship to the oldest seaman, not a look of fear 
 was seen. They all went into adlion giving three 
 cheers and requesting to be laid alongside of the 
 enemy." And how, under the brave Bainbridge, she 
 fell in with and captured his Britannic majesty's fri- 
 gate, Java, of forty-nine guns and upward of four 
 hundred men, with I^ieut. Gen. Hisslop, Governor 
 General of Bombay, aboard, with his gorgeous staff. 
 You must remember that if there was anywhere a gen- 
 tleman who was convinced of his native superiority to 
 all created beings, it was the commander of one of his 
 Britannic majesty's ships of war. Had not his favor- 
 ite poet, Campbell, sung : 
 
 " Britannia needs no bulwarks, 
 No towers along the steep, 
 Her march is o'er the mountain wave. 
 Her home is on the deep." 
 
 It is an enchanting pidlure I/ieut. Gen. Hisslop, 
 Governor General of Bombay, beholds when the Con- 
 stitution is bearing down on the Java. The American 
 ship is a beauty and her ensign is floating in the soft 
 breath of the tropics, but the British commander could 
 not see what is plain to our American eyes : 
 
141 
 
 " Above the swelling, tossing flag 
 On Freedom's gale outblown, 
 With eyes ablaze and talons stretched, 
 The eagle guards its own. 
 
 From side to side its fearsome head, 
 
 With restless watch is swung. 
 And woe betide the foe on whom 
 
 That burning glance is flung." 
 
 Nor could lie see the American soul flaming in the 
 breasts of the noble Bainbridge and his mighty tars, 
 soon to be voiced by the crush of the Constitution's 
 guns. 
 
 But, fellow citizens, protradled, bloody and terrific 
 as were the struggles to win and maintain our inde- 
 pendence, is not this great country of ours worth all 
 the treasure, suffering and love it has cost, and does 
 it not warrant the burning patriotism of its people ? 
 
 In one of those triumphant and grateful strains 
 with which the royal Psalmist of Israel extolled the 
 beneficence of Jehovah, he exclaimed : ' ' The lines 
 are fallen to me in pleasant places. Yea, I have a. 
 goodly heritage." But how insignificant was the 
 kingdom of David, when contrasted with the marvel- 
 ous, the varied, the diversified, the opulent dominion 
 of this people. The goodly heritage of the Hebrew 
 king comprehended a rugged territory one hundred 
 
142 
 
 aud forty-five miles in length, with an average of forty- 
 five miles in breadth. What imagination can grasp 
 our National domain of three billions of acres, or, to 
 use the form more common in geography, three million 
 five hundred and fifty-seven thousand and nine square 
 miles, surpassing by twenty-five thousand square miles 
 the entire territory of Europe ? And what were the 
 mountains round about Jerusalem, what the cloud- 
 capped summits of Hermon or Hebron, or Gerizim, 
 compared with those towering peaks of the Sierras or 
 the Rockies, whose lofty cones forever repose in the 
 icy desolation of eternal winter? What were the 
 cedars of lycbanon, whose tossing plumes are extolled 
 in the rapturous poetry of the Scriptures, when com- 
 pared with the great red woods of the Pacific slope, 
 the sequoa gigantia of the Yosemite Valley? And, 
 Sir, he who traverses the primeval forests of our own 
 Georgia pines may well recall the devout lines of the 
 poet : 
 
 " Father thy hand 
 Hath reared these venerable columns, 
 Thou didst weave this verdant roof, 
 Fit shrine for humbler worshipper to hold 
 Communion with his Maker. 
 
 These dim vaults, these winding aisles of human pomp or 
 pride report not. 
 
143 
 
 But thou art here, thou fill'st 
 
 The solitude. Grandeur, strength and grace, 
 
 Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak — by whose 
 
 immovable stem I stand and seem 
 Almost annihilated — not a prince 
 In all that proud old world beyond the deep 
 E'er wore his crown so loftily as he 
 Wears the green coronal of leaves with which 
 
 Thy hand hath graced him." 
 
 Consider alone the vast empire of Florida, bounded 
 on one side by the restless surges of the Atlantic, 
 and on the other by the Mexican Gulf, which pours 
 forth that mighty stream, the "wandering summer 
 of the seas." Here nature seems to have emptied 
 from her cornucopia all the vegetable treasures of 
 both temperate and torrid zones. Here may be 
 seen the sweet corn and coffee, the grape, the guava, 
 the pumpkin and the pineapple, the tomato and 
 tamarind, the melon and mango, the squash and 
 sapodillo, the lime, the lemon, the citron, the cocoa- 
 nut and the orange. Solomon, the wisest man the 
 world e'er saw, has spoken of arboreal treasures ' ' from 
 the cedar tree that is in I^ebanon to the hissop that 
 springeth out of the wall," but neither he nor any of 
 the great men of antiquity knew of that genus of the 
 grasses which we term the Indian corn, the most 
 
144 
 
 prolific, the most valuable, and, to my eye, the most 
 beautiful of all of the cereals known to man, worth 
 more than all the gold of Ophir or diamonds of Gol- 
 conda. This marvelous crop in our own country 
 yielded in the year of Our lyord, 1896, a crop of twa 
 billion two hundred and sixty-nine million bushels, 
 enough to furnish a daily cake for one whole year to 
 every man, woman and child on the globe. And, Sir, 
 it would be an unpardonable omission in this great 
 manufadluring city, whose opulence now, as in the 
 past, is largely attributable to the snowy luxuriance 
 of our royal staple, if I should fail to pay my respedls 
 to King Cotton, the sovereign whose reign has been 
 but a little longer than that of the gracious queen, 
 the sexagesimal anniversary of whose beneficent 
 rule has kindled the responsive enthusiasm of the 
 world. Indigenous to Asia and Africa and as well to 
 America, cotton was cultivated in Egypt and India 
 from a time whereof the memory of man runneth not 
 to the contrary. But the aborigines of this country 
 manifested but little aptitude for its growth or manu- 
 fadlure, and it is a remarkable fadl that previous to the 
 Revolution our colonial ancestors had not exported 
 one bale of cotton to the Old World. There may yet 
 be seen in the neighborhood of Savannah the vats used 
 by the planters of indigo, on which, together with the 
 
145 
 
 silk worm, the illustrious Oglethorpe mainly relied 
 for the produdliveness of the colony his benevolence 
 established. Indeed, as late as 1784, when a little 
 cotton found its way to I/iverpool in an American ves- 
 sel, it was held to be an unlawful importation on the 
 ground that it could not be grown in the United States. 
 Even our Southern statesmen did not know that their 
 climate and soil was peculiarly adapted to the culture 
 of this beautiful staple. It is amusing to read in 
 Lloyd's Debates, Vol. i, page 79, that Mr. Burke, a 
 member of the House of Representatives from South 
 Carolina, said that cotton was in contemplation as an 
 article of produce by the planters of South Carolina and 
 Georgia, and that if good seed could be procured, he 
 hoped it might be successful. The coveted seed were 
 obtained and planted. The crop in 1794 amounted to 
 only two million pounds. In 1894 nine million nine 
 hundred and ninety-nine thousand two hundred and 
 fifty-one, not pounds, but bales, showed that the 
 Southern States of our Union alone have added billions 
 to the wealth of our country. 
 
 In 1829 there was but one railroad in the United 
 States. It stretched from Honesdale to Carbondale, 
 Pennsylvania. It was the proud proprietor of a small 
 locomotive called the "Stourbridge Lion," because 
 it was imported from ^ jnaoufadluring town of that 
 
146 
 
 name in England. The road next construdled, I 
 am proud to say, was that great thoroughfare from 
 Augusta to Charleston, projeded in the fall of 1829, 
 and the most gigantic enterprise of the kind in the 
 world at that time. My grandfather, Alexander 
 Speer, then a member of the South Carolina legis- 
 lature, was one of the committee to test, on the banks 
 of the Congaree, the tradlion power of the locomotive 
 engine as compared with mules and horses. ' ' Gentle- 
 men," said Horatio Allen, the chief engineer, "there 
 is no reason to expedl any improvement in the breed 
 of horses, but the man is not yet alive who can fore- 
 tell the improvement in the breed of locomotives." 
 Had Allen, who died in 1889, lived half a dozen years 
 longer he could have said that he had adled as loco- 
 motive engineer on the trial trip of the " Stourbridge 
 Lion," and had lived to see his country traversed by 
 one hundred and eighty thousand six hundred and 
 fifty-seven miles of railway, equipped with thirty-five 
 thousand six hundred and ninety-nine locomotives, 
 and every one of them, when compared with the 
 "Stourbridge Lion," a miracle of mechanical per- 
 fedlion and powers. 
 
 But what may we not say of the mineral and metallic 
 wealth of our goodly heritage. When in 1848 a few 
 glittering particles of gold were discovered in the 
 
147 
 
 gravel of Captain Sutter's mill race in California, and 
 the attention of an excited world was dire<5ted to the 
 auriferous slopes of the Sierra Nevada, in a little more 
 than a decade of years, the hydraulic mines along the 
 tributaries of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers 
 yielded gold to the value of nine hundred millions, 
 placing our country at the head of all the gold pro- 
 ducing nations on the earth. And yet. Sir, after all, 
 what is the gold of California or Colorado, or the silver 
 of Montana and Nevada, when compared with the 
 iron of the eight or nine hundred mines scattered all 
 over these United States ? There is but little difference 
 between gold in the form of ingots or bullion, and 
 gold that has been coined. How different the case 
 with iron. The modern metallurgist has achieved 
 what the old alchemist failed to discover. The arti- 
 ficer of the present day transmutes the base metal into 
 gold by simply changing its quality and its form. A 
 manufadlurer of iron or steel can take a ton of pig iron, 
 worth only eight or ten dollars, and convert it into 
 drawn wire for fish hooks or needles, or telegraph or 
 telephone lines, and behold the metal has increased 
 in value a thousand fold. It can be sold for eight 
 thousand dollars. If converted into pinion wire for 
 clocks, it is adlually worth forty- three thousand two 
 hundred dollars a ton. And spring wire for watches 
 
148 
 
 is worth four hundred thousand dollars, while the 
 nerve extradting wire used by dentists is worth two 
 million one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per ton. 
 Now, when we refledl that our mines yield nearly 
 eight million tons of pig iron, worth in that form 
 seventy-five million to eighty million dollars, and our 
 silver mines yield sixty-four million dollars, and our 
 gold mines, not including recent wonderftil discoveries 
 in Alaska, forty million dollars, to say nothing of 
 copper, tin, lead, quicksilver, it will be seen how in- 
 calculable is the mineral wealth of our country. One 
 other marvelous produdl I will mention, and then if I 
 can find a pessimist before me I stand ready to commit 
 him to a comfortable sanitarium for those incurables 
 who never enjoy a lucid interval. The early settlers 
 of New York, Pennsylvania and Western Virginia 
 were acquainted with certain bad-smelling springs, 
 the flow from which was sometimes bottled and sold 
 at twenty-five cents a gill under the name of Seneca 
 oil. This undluous substance was a panacea for rheu- 
 matism and many other ills that flesh is heir to. Even 
 by the rustic dwellers on Oil Creek, in Venango county, 
 Pennsylvania, it was not used as an illuminating agent, 
 but they pursued the even tenor of their way with no 
 light save the pine knot and tallow dip. I^ittle did 
 they dream that the day was at hand when their fields 
 
149 
 
 would be filled with the thunder of machinery, with 
 derricks, artesian augers, oil tanks, vast refineries, far- 
 reaching pipe lines. For myself, I am free to say that 
 I never heard of kerosene oil until after the war. The 
 first oil well began to yield the coveted liquid in 
 August, 1859. These wells have multiplied as by the 
 agency of Aladdin's genii. Pennsylvania alone in 
 nine months, ending March, 1896, produced six hun- 
 dred and fifty million six hundred and seventy-six 
 thousand nine hundred and seventy-four gallons. And 
 when there is added to the produdl of that State the 
 outcome from the great oil industries of West Virginia, 
 Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri, Colo- 
 rado and California, you may well be prepared to be- 
 lieve the statisticians who tell us that the oil wells of 
 the United States employ capital amounting to five 
 hundred million dollars ; that they use thirty thousand 
 miles of pipe lines, ten thousand tank cars, vast fleets 
 of steam and sailing vessels to transport refined petro- 
 leum to the remotest regions of Europe, Asia and 
 Africa. The American produdl sheds its welcome 
 beneficent light for the ranchmen of Australia, and 
 the Boer of South Africa, in the hovels of the Russian 
 peasant, and on the streets and in the homes of Con- 
 stantinople, Damascus, Delhi, Calcutta, Pekin and 
 Yokohoma. No produdl of the century has done more 
 
150 
 
 to increase the spread of knowledge, for it gives the 
 humblest the opportunity to read and to study. With 
 its benign assistance the poorest workman in the land, 
 by "toiling upward in the night," may so train his 
 understanding and cultivate his taste that he can ex- 
 claim with the poet — 
 
 " My mind to me a kingdom is 
 So great a joy therein I find 
 As doth exceed all other bliss 
 That God or Nature hath designed." 
 
 I may not, Mr. President, within the time appro- 
 priate to these exercises, recount those famous inci- 
 dents which led to the creation of our political union, 
 with the ' ' shot heard round the world ' ' at I^exington, 
 nor to that mighty debate which culminated in the 
 Declaration of Independence, penned without book or 
 document to aid him, by the immortal hand of Jeffer- 
 son, nor to the formation and the adoption of that 
 Constitution which has preserved all those blessings 
 the Revolution made possible. I will, however, put it 
 to your impartial judgment, if it has not accomplished 
 the noble purposes of government outlined in its 
 preamble? "To form a more perfedl union, establish 
 justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the 
 common defense, promote the general welfare, and 
 
151 
 
 secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our 
 posterity. ' ' Nor may I recount how our advancing 
 civilization, always with due respedl to the rights of 
 the States, and with the approval of thoughtful men 
 everywhere, has entrusted to the general government 
 vast interests of whose existence our fathers never 
 dreamed. Nor how, when the rights of our own citi- 
 zens, or the interests of other republics of this hemi- 
 sphere have been affedled, our country has occasionally 
 interposed among the nations of the Old Word, not to 
 supplicate or protest, but to counsel and decide, until 
 in such matters the settled will of the American peo- 
 ple has attained the force and authority of international 
 law. Nor need we set forth the colossal military power 
 of our united country. The arbitrament of war, which 
 settled adverse theories of the Constitution, opened 
 the eyes of mankind, and they saw the prowess of this 
 American people on many stricken fields. Then it 
 was a fight between brothers, and now the brothers, 
 thank God, are shoulder to shoulder under one flag, 
 and that the flag of our fathers, ' ' still full high ad- 
 vanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their orig- 
 inal lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single 
 star obscured, bearing for its motto in charadlers of 
 living light blazing on all its ample folds, I/iberty and 
 Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable." 
 
152 
 
 A few days ago, in the land of old and great renown 
 from which we sprung, on a mighty arm of the sea, 
 reposed a majestic flotilla. The navies of the nations 
 were there, with fluttering signals and thundering 
 guns, to do honor to the noble wife and mother, who 
 for sixty years has gently and firmly diredled the for- 
 tunes of the Knglish speaking race, save in that inde- 
 pendent nation, whose immortal birth we commemo- 
 rate to-day. The ceremonies of the day had ended, 
 and night had fallen on the waters. Untold thousands 
 from every land, in craft of every kind, and thronging 
 the shores, awaited the moment when the mighty 
 Armada would burst into glorious illumination in 
 honor of the Empress Queen. It came, and perhaps 
 since the divine edidl, ' ' I^et there be light, ' ' no more 
 gorgeous corruscation effulged before the eyes of man. 
 Again, in an instant, impenetrable darkness brooded 
 o'er the scene, when lo ! there leaped forth from the 
 search light of our country's gallant cruiser a brilliant 
 ray which fell upon the flag as it floated at the yard- 
 arm of the Brooklyn. Naught else was in the eyes of 
 that vast multitude. There in its unsullied beauty, 
 surrounded by the floating and sombre castles of 
 monarchy, it gleamed, the symbol of a free and mighty 
 people. And, oh, toiling, suffering millions of other 
 lands, borne down as thou art by the mailed hand of 
 
153 
 
 power, thy statesmen robbing the nations of their 
 youth, to make them food for powder, thy rulers 
 breathing out threaten ings and slaughter, couldst thou 
 but know the liberty and light it gives, that banner 
 in the sky would be to Czar and Kaiser as the light 
 that blinded Saul of Tarsus, and the Brotherhood of 
 Man would cry unto, them, "Why persecutest thou 
 me ? ' ' May Omnipotence ordain that the Flag of our 
 Fathers shall be the sign in the sky, in which that 
 Brotherhood shall go on conquering and to conquer 
 until it shall wave above earth's prostrate thrones, 
 and its bright stars shall guide the nations to the per- 
 f^dlibility of man. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Numbers Following Subjects Indicate Pages of the Volume. 
 
 Adams, John ; his character, 45 ; elected Vice-President 88; 
 never forgave Hamilton, 88 ; with Samuel Adams recom- 
 mended Washington for Commander-in-Chief, 37 ; sec- 
 onds Lee's resolution, 43 ; first minister to Court of St. 
 James, 65 ; death of, 48 ; words, by Webster, attributed 
 to him, 138. , 
 
 Adams, Samuel, hesitates to favor adoption of Constitution, 
 81. 
 
 Adoption of Constitution, opposing forces. Friends have the 
 advantage, 74 and 75. 
 
 Albany, New York, attempt to formulate Union there by 
 Franklin, 17. 
 
 Amendments, Bill of Rights secured thereby, 75 ; first ten 
 proposed by first Congress, September 1789, 75 ; ratified 
 December 15, 1791, 75 ; what they contained, 75, 76. 
 
 Alexander, Mr., cruel treatment of by Grierson, 135. 
 
 Allen, Horatio, remarks of, 146. 
 
 American people richer than French, 54 ; Arbiter, what is 
 final of the Constitution, 97-99. 
 
 Army before Boston, 39 ; description of, 39 ; kept up by pa- 
 tience and fortitude of Washington, 53. 
 
 Augusta, Ga., mentioned, 7; capture of, 121 ; siege of, 133- 
 154 i taken by Americans June 5, 1781, 136. 
 
 Author, opportunity to know, certifies devotion Southern 
 men to Constitution, 6 ; opinion of final arbiter, loi, 102. 
 
 Bancroft declares Constitution a nobler work than conven- 
 tion had believed possible to devise, 71. 
 
 Bainbridge mentioned, 140. 
 
 Baker, Colonel, mentioned, 127. 
 
 Bentham's account of Wedderburn's attack, 22. 
 
Bill of Rights does not appear in original instrument, 75. 
 
 Binney, Horace, eulogy on Marshal, 84. 
 
 Black, Col. J. C. C, mentioned, 129. 
 
 Boston Tea Party, 27. 
 
 Bradley, Justice, mentioned, 97. 
 
 Braddock's expedition 12. 
 
 Breckinridge, letter of Jefferson to, 108. 
 
 British Board of Trade begins aggressions, 18. 
 
 Brown, Commandaat at Augusta, 122 ; his exasperating 
 treatment by patriots, 122 ; Atrocities of, 124. 
 
 Bute, Lord, mentioned, 25. 
 
 Burke of South Carolina, remark with reference to cotton, 
 145- 
 
 "Catholicon," The "for Our Country is the Old American 
 Spirit," 138. 
 
 Charters, British insisted King had right to revoke, 19. 
 
 Charter, granted colonies, 17. 
 
 Chatham County, Ga,, named, 14. 
 
 Chatham, Lord, remarks on British Constitution, 102. 
 
 Civilization, its advance has extended the influence of the 
 general government, 151. 
 
 Clause 18, section 8, article i, subject of fifth lecture, 93 ; the 
 language of, 94 ; none more vital to country's welfare, 
 94 ; discussion of by Supreme Court ex parte Yarbrough, 
 110, U. S. 658, 95 ; powers granted by authorized legisla- 
 tion essential and appropriate for carrying into execu- 
 tion the powers vested in the government, or in any de- 
 partment or officer thereof, 95 ; confers no power to make 
 general legislation such as is exercised by Parliament, 
 9Si 96 ! powers to legislate limited, but are sovereign in 
 so far as they are expressly granted or necessarily im- 
 plied, 96 ; powers operative on every foot of the soil of 
 every state and every territory, 96 ; discussed ex parte 
 Seabold 100, U. S. 371, 96. 
 
 Clay, Henry, condemns Jackson's views, 10. 
 
 Claims, English of America, through discoveries of Cabots, 
 John and Sebastian, 10. 
 
 Clarke, Colonel Elijah, mentioned, 123. 
 
 Coal oil, 148 ; its marvelous value, 149 ; causes the spread 
 of knowledge and education, 149-50. 
 
Colonists, English, soon opposed by French, lo ; prowess of, 
 proven in French war, i6 ; Military training in, i5 ; re- 
 cent effort to donate their lands to king's favorites, i8. 
 
 Cooley, Judge, his opinion as to Arbiter, loi. 
 
 Common law of colonies gave no unity, lo. 
 
 Committee on Declaration appointed, 43 ; Committee on 
 Declaration, members, 45. 
 
 Commerce, American, object British envy, 18, 19. 
 
 Confederation, Committee on Articles, 53 ; articles approved, 
 53 ; articles, effort to induce states to accept, 59 : articles 
 "neither fit for war nor peace," 59 ; congress of, disbands 
 in disgust, 63 ; articles of, contain no clause to make 
 Constitution effective, 93. 
 
 Confidence popular in Constitution, 5. 
 
 Confiscations followed searches, 19. 
 
 Concord, fight, 19, April 1775, 51 ; expedition to, 29, fight, 
 29 ; retreat and slaughter of British, 29, 30. 
 
 Congress, without credit, 54 ; recommendation as to Western 
 lands, 57 ; Centinental, lends its approval to Constitution, 
 69 ; legislation of first congress still survives, 90. 
 
 Connecticut, regiment meeting of, 55 ; ratifies Constitution 
 by a vote of 3 to i. 
 
 Constitution not submitted to state governments, but to con- 
 ventions of the people for approval, 72 ; not certain it 
 would be adopted by states, 72 ; debates on adoption in 
 state convention very able, 72 ; expression legal union, 
 9 ; has preserved the blessings the revolution made pos- 
 sible, 151. 
 
 Continental Congress, second, assembles May 10, 1775, 28 ; 
 nature of, 51, 52 ; continental dollars, worth lyi cents, 
 54- 
 
 Congress powerless, 40. 
 
 Corn, American annual crop sustain mankind one year, 144. 
 
 Cornwallis, I/Ord, surrender of, 51 ; sanguinary instru<Slions, 
 121. 
 
 Convention, composed of 55 members, 70. 
 
 Cotton, 144, 145. 
 
 Cowpens, Battle of, 130. 
 
 Cumming, Joseph B., remarks by, 6. 
 
 Customs, British regulations, obsolete revived, 19. 
 
Debate on Louisiana purchase ; remarks in debate John Ran- 
 dolph, of Roanoke, no ; of Casar A. Rodney, iii ; Ran- 
 dolph, of Roanoke, views in conclusion, in ; Nichol- 
 son, of Maryland, no, in. 
 
 Debate on Declaration, 45. 
 
 Declaration of Independence, last clause of, 50 ; how drafted, 
 44 ; committee reports thereon, 44. 
 
 Dedication, 3. 
 
 Delaware gave unanimous vote, 81. 
 
 Description of delegates Constitutional convention, 70. 
 
 Dickinson combats declaration, 46 ; Dickinson, of Pennsyl- 
 vania, writes scheme of Confederation, 53. 
 
 Dinwiddie, Governor of Virginia, 11. 
 
 Du Quesne, Fort taken, 14. 
 
 Effingham, resigned rather than fight, colonists, 33 ; publicly 
 thanked by merchants of London and Dublin, 33 ; coun- 
 ty in Georgia named for him, 33. 
 
 Electoral college, when first meeting, 87. 
 
 Empress Queen, incident at her jubilee, 152. 
 
 Emerson, Chaplain, remarks of 40. 
 
 Evarts, Wm. M., grandson of Roger Sherman, 82. 
 
 Federalists, 77 ; best commentary on Constitution, 77 ; dis- 
 pute as to authorship, 78 ; Federal papers, 85 in number, 
 78. 
 
 Fish and Oyster convention at Alexandria, 68. 
 
 Flag, American, hoisted, 42. 
 
 Flag at yard arm of the Brooklyn, 152. 
 
 Fourth of July, for generation observance exiled from 
 Southern states, 6 ; 1754 Washington surrendered Fort 
 Necessity, 12 ; Declaration adopted, 47 ; Adams and Jef- 
 ferson died, 48, 49 ; observance of advocates, 49 ; Jeffer- 
 son Club celebrates, 116, 119, 153. 
 
 France, shipping arms, money and supplies to Americans; 
 
 42 ; supplicated for loans, 54. 
 
 Frankland, new state of, went to pieces, 90. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, attempt at union, 17 ; "It is a rising 
 and not a setting sun," 73 ; Franklin's revenge for Wed- 
 derburn's invective, 24 ; suggests articles of confedera- 
 tion in 1775, 52; at his request Washington unanimously 
 chosen President, 70. 
 
French claimed American territory through expeditions, 
 Marquette, La Salle, Joliet, Du Quesne, lo, 
 
 French wars gave strong impulse towards union, i6 ; French 
 Minister reports to his government, 63. 
 
 Friends of America in England, 33. 
 
 Fuller, Chief Justice, dissents, 97. 
 
 Gage, commander British army in Boston, 28. 
 
 Galatin, views of, 109. 
 
 Galpin, Fort, capture of, 133. 
 
 George III, obstinacy, 41 ; his proclamation calling Ameri- 
 cans traitors hissed in Royal Exchange, 42 ; animosity 
 to Whigs, 24. 
 
 Georgia unites with patriots, 32 ; gives unanimous vote for 
 adoption of Constitution, 82. 
 
 Gladstone's opinion of Constitution, 71. 
 
 Gloucester, Duke of, friend of America, 34. 
 
 Glover, of Massachusetts, writes about distress of Massa- 
 chusetts troops, 58. 
 
 Gordon, Gen. John B., mentioned, 128. 
 
 Government, of British India and American colonies distin- 
 guished, 20 ; people now first had a, 87. 
 
 Great Britain recognizes independence of each state, 60. 
 
 Greene, letter to president of Pennsylvania, 54. 
 
 Greene, Gen. Nathaniel, mentioned, 127. 
 
 Grenville, mentioned, 25. 
 
 Grierson, Fort, taken by assault, 134 ; Colonel, shot dead af- 
 ter surrender, 135. 
 
 Guerriere, the, mentioned, 139. ~ 
 
 Habersham, Joseph, mentioned, 32. 
 
 Hancock, John, Massachusetts, first hesitates, 81 ; president 
 of Congress, 46. 
 
 Handy, Captain, bravery of, 136. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, compared with Wm. Pitt, 56 ; Hamil- 
 ilton and Madison, "The complement of two such minds 
 was most auspicious for the country," 67 ; Hamilton 
 elected a delegate, 68 ; mistake of, prevented Adams re- 
 ceiving unanimous vote, 88 ; organized treasury depart- 
 ment, 90 ; report showing ability of government to pay 
 
its debts caused amazing advance in securities, 91 ; pro- 
 posed to assume debt of the states, gi ; belongs honor of 
 placing national credit on an imperishable foundation, 
 91 ; prophetic suggestions of, 56 ; extreme views of, 105, 
 106. 
 
 Havana, taken by British, 14 ; Exchanged for Florida, 14. 
 
 Henry, Patrick, remarks about Marshall, 85 ; fiercely opposed 
 Constitution, "We shall have a king, the army will sal- 
 ute him as monarch," 85 ; Patrick Henry in the old 
 church at Richmond, 139. 
 
 Hisslop, Lieutenant-General, Governor-General of Bombay, 
 captured on Java, 140. 
 
 Hoar, George F., grandson of Roger Sherman, (note) 82. 
 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendel 139. 
 
 Hull, Isaac, extract from report of, 140. 
 
 Hutchinson's letters, 20. 
 
 Inauguration, new government, when first had, 87; first in- 
 auguration, 89; from Washington's the country has 
 taken no step backward, 91; Indigo, attempt to cultivate 
 in Savannah, 144. 
 
 Independence, not considered at first, 41; remarks of Frank- 
 lin, Jefferson and Washington thereon, 41; Day, impor- 
 tance of celebrating, 49; Day, celebration of in Augusta, 
 Ga., 6; Hall convention meets in, 70. 
 
 International laws, determination of United States has force 
 of, in this hemisphere, 151. 
 
 Intolerable Acts, the, 27. 
 
 Jackson, President, vetoes bank bill, 100. 
 
 Jackson, Major James, illustrious and dramatic character, 
 127. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, description of, 78; Jefferson, Chairman of 
 Committee, 43; his character, 43 ; opinion of Royalties 
 in Europe, 79; appreciates grandeur of American recep- 
 tion, 79 ; at first thought amendments to Articles of Con- 
 federation snflScient, 79 ; finally comes out bravely for 
 Constitution, 81 ; Death of, 79 ; inscription on his tomb, 
 49 ; "Jefferson Club," Augusta, Ga., celebration Inde- 
 pendence Day by, 6; letter from, 117; motive of, 119. 
 alarm at Napoleon's adtion, 105 ; proposes alliance with 
 Great Britain, 105 ; could find no authority in Constitu- 
 tion to buy Louisiana, 107 ; buys it nevertheless, 109 ; 
 remarks to his Cabinet, 109 ; amendment to Constitution 
 
vli 
 
 authorizing purchase ignored, by Cabinet and Congress, 
 log-iio; views of Monroe's mission, io6. 
 
 Johnson, Samuel, reference to Pitt, 13. 
 
 Jones, Chas. C, Jr., History of Georgia, mentioned, 125. 
 
 Jones, Noble Winiberly, mentioned, 32. 
 
 Keppel declines to serve against patriots, 33. 
 
 King attempts to cede lands to favorites, 17. 
 
 Lafayette joins Americans, 34 ; letters to his wife, 39. 
 
 Lamar, Justice, dissents, 97 ; extradt from opinion of, 97 ; 
 Land, granted colonies by charter, 17. 
 
 La Boeuf, French poet, 12. 
 
 Lectures, purpose of these, 5. 
 
 Lee, Richard Henry, introduces resolution looking to Inde- 
 pendence, 43 ; " Letters of a Federal farmer, " written by 
 Richard Henry Lee, in opposition to the Constitution, 78. 
 
 Lee, Light Horse Harry, character, 130-132. 
 
 Lee, Gen. Robert E., mentioned, 130. 
 
 Lexington, Kentucky, how named, 32. 
 
 Lincoln, President, remarks on Dred Scott case, 100. 
 
 Lord Mayor and Common Council of London, presented peti- 
 tion against coercion, 36. 
 
 Louisburg taken, 14. 
 
 Louisiana, treaty, secret concerning, 14 ; named for Louis 
 the fourteenth, 15 ; sold to the United States by Napo- 
 leon Bonaparte in 1803, 15 ; purchase of, 103 ; purchase 
 enormous benefits, 114. 
 
 Macon Telegraph, mentioned, 5. 
 
 Madison, James, suggests conference with States, 68 ; advo- 
 cacy of, secures passage of amendments, 76 ; description 
 of, 76 ; no conditional ratification possible, 86 ; admiuis- 
 tration leader in house, 90 ; his first suggestion restores 
 credit of Union, 90; eledted delegate, 68 ; again induces 
 Virginia to take the lead, 69 ; termed Father of the Con- 
 stitution, 76; survived to days of nullification, 77 ; in 
 last message to his countrymen appealed for respect aud 
 obedience to the laws of the Union, 77 ; resigned from 
 Congress to enter Virginia convention, 84. 
 
 Maryland, last to accept confederation, 59 ; Maryland and 
 Virginia invite the States to meet at Annapolis, 68. 
 
Marshall, John, description of, 84 ; powerful advocate of 
 Constitution, 84 ; extract from opinion of, 98. 
 
 Mason, George, of Virginia, entirely hostile, 83. 
 
 Massachtisetts, conservatism and wealth of people, for Con- 
 stitution, Revolutionary generals also advocate it, 80 ; 
 description of opponents, 80-81 ; voles for United Ameri- 
 ca, 81. 
 
 Maximilian, Invasion of Mexico by, 104. 
 McCall, Col., mentioned, 123. 
 Mecklenburg, declaration signed, 37. 
 Mercer University Law Class, 4. 
 Military powers of our united country, 151. 
 Miller, Justice, mentioned, 97. 
 Mineral and metallic wealth, 146-148. 
 Minute men, 28. 
 
 Mifflin, President of Congress, remarks on Washington's resig- 
 nation, 64. 
 
 Mississippi, right to navigation asserted by Congress, 90. 
 
 Mobile, founded by D'Iberville, 10. 
 
 Montcalm, greatest of French Governors, 13. 
 
 Morgan's rifle corps marched to Cambridge, 31 ; Geu. men- 
 tioned, 130. 
 
 Mount Vernon, Washington retires to, 64. 
 
 Mourning worn in England for Americans killed at Lexing- 
 ton and Concord, 33. 
 
 Monroe, James, authorized to buy New Orleans from Napo- 
 leon, 106. 
 
 " Museum " American, opinion of writer in, 62. 
 
 Napoleon compels retrocession from Spain of Louisiana, 104. 
 " Not only New Orleans I see, but the wliole colony with- 
 out reserve," 112; his motive, 112; ludicrous interview 
 between himself Lucien and Joseph, 112-113 ; price paid, 
 US- 
 Navigation laws made obnoxious to the colonists, 25. 
 
 Neagle, In re, 97. 
 
 Necessity, Fort surrendered, 12, 
 
 North Carolina and Rhode Island reludtant a<5tion, 86-87. 
 
 New England bitterly hostile to Quebec Adl, 27. 
 
New Jersey took favorable adlion, 8l. 
 
 New Orleans founded by French company, lo. 
 
 New York. French driven from, 14; ratifies Constitution in 
 July, 86. 
 
 North, Lord, mentioned, 25. 
 
 Oglethorpe, Lieutenant General, declines to command invad- 
 ing force, 33; first visitor to John Adams as American 
 ministsr, 65. 
 
 Ohio Co., its endeavors, 11. 
 
 Old Ironsides, 139. 
 
 Ordinance for Government North West Territory, 89. 
 
 Otis, of Mass., resisted Writs of Assistance, 19. 
 
 Paine, Thomas, pamphlet "Common Sense," 42; letter of 
 
 Jefferson to, 109. 
 Peace of Paris, 18 ; peace declared September 3, 1783, 60 ; 
 
 treaty of, 15. 
 PenhoUow, vs. Doane, Judicial interpretation powers Conti- 
 nental Congress, 52. 
 Penn, Richard, Mission to the King, 41. 
 Pennsylvania, line meeting,, 58 ; feeling for Constitution 
 
 strong, 82. 
 Pettigrew, opinion of Marshall, 84. 
 Phelps, Mr. Edward J., comments on American judiciary, 
 
 102-103. 
 Pinkney, William, eulogy on Marshall, 84. 
 Pickins, Gen. Andrew, character, 129-30. 
 Pig Iron, 146 ; increased value for manufa<ftnre, 147-48. 
 Pitt, William, becomes prime minister, 13 ; Pittsburg named, 
 
 14. 
 Political Uuion, American States began with Concord fight, 
 
 3°- 
 Preface, 5. 
 
 Presidential eleftors, when first chosen, 87. 
 Prescott, Rebecca, wife of Roger Sherman, and grandmother 
 
 of George F. Hoar and William M. Evarts, anecdote of, 
 
 82. 
 
 Quaker State inscribes name of Franklin first on her roll, 70. 
 Quartering troops resisted, 26. 
 
Quebec, taken, 14; Quebec Act, 27. 
 
 Quorum obtained in Pennsylvania by pursuing absentees, 
 dragji;ing them to tlie assembly and locking them up, 82. 
 
 Rudolph, Major, romantic tradition, 136. 
 
 Railroads, mentioned, 146. 
 
 Revere, Paul, carries the news, 28. 
 
 Rockingham, Lord, mentioned, 25. 
 
 Royal Americans, their military distindlion, 16. 
 
 Salem, expedition to, 26. 
 
 Sallust, quotation from, 138. 
 
 Searches unreasonable begun by British, 19. 
 
 Secret treaty between France and Spain, 14. 
 
 Securities of government at once advance, 91. 
 
 Sherman, Roger, Connedlicut action of, largely due to his in- 
 fluence, 82. 
 
 Sheridan, mentioned, 104. 
 
 Silk worm, attempt to cultivate at Savannah, 144. 
 
 Spies of Sir Henry Clinton hanged, 58. 
 
 Speer, Emory, letter from, to Jefferson Club, 117-18 ; Alexan- 
 der, mentioned, 146. 
 
 South Carolina adopted the Constitution before Virginia and 
 
 North Carolina, 82. 
 Stamp A<3; resisted, 26. 
 States, debts of, amount |2t, 500,000 assumed by government, 
 
 91- 
 Study of the Constitution, value to youth, 91-92. 
 
 Talleyrand, " You have made a noble bargain for yourself," 
 
 JI4- 
 Tax on tea resisted, 26. 
 Taylor, John, of Carolina, mentioned, 107. 
 Telfair, Edward, mentioned, 32. 
 
 Thackeray's account of Braddock and his oflBcers, 13. 
 The soil on which we stand is historic, 120. 
 Ticouderoga, taken by English, 14 ; taken by Americans, 28. 
 Times, signs of all brightened on adoption of Constitution, 
 
 89. 
 Trenton, reception of Washington in battlefield, 89. 
 
Tyler, Samuel, Prof., criticises remarks of Mr. Lincoln, loi. 
 
 Union, its value, 5. 
 
 United States, magnificence of, 141-42 ; vast and varied re- 
 sources, 143. 
 
 Virginia, took the lead, 67 ; shows the patriot coramamler at 
 head of her delegation, 69 ; and Middle States only rep- 
 resented in Annapolis convention, 69; ami New York 
 hesitation gave great concern lo patriots, 83 ; votes for 
 Constitution on June 25, by a majority of ten, 86. 
 
 Walpole, reference to Pitt, 13. 
 
 Washington, extra<ft from farewell address, 5 ; sent as mes- 
 senger to warn French, 11 ; Intrepidity of, at Braddock's 
 defeat, 13 ; Washington, made Commander in Chief, 47 : 
 description of, 37 ; believes strongly in Divine power, 
 38 ; letter to Joseph Jones, 55 ; to George Mason, 57 ; 
 opinion of Confederation, 61 ; letter to Jeffersun, W\the 
 and Pendleton, 6i ; knowledge of country's difficulties, 
 65; resigns as Commander in Chief, 64; his determina- 
 tion that America should have a government sufficient 
 for its exigencies, 55 ; writes autograph letter, 69 ; opi n- 
 ion as to issue of adoption, 72 ; the " silent walchman," 
 83 ; receives unanimous vole of Eledtoral College, 87 ; 
 triumphal progress to inauguration, 89 ; affedtion for 
 Col. Lee, 131. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, divination of Adams' speech, 46 ; condemns 
 Jackson's views, loi ; immortal utterances of, 151. 
 
 Wedderburn, attack on Kranklin, 21 ; disastrous effedl of 
 same, on the British interest 23. 
 
 Wesley, John, takes part for colonists, 34. 
 
 " WhiteHouse," desperate defense of, 123. 
 
 Wilkes County, revolutionary character, 122 ; for whom 
 named, 122. 
 
 Williamson, Micajah, mentioned, 127. 
 
 Witherspoon, Dr., mentioned, 130. 
 
 Women and children of Georgia, flight to Tennessee, 126. 
 
 "World turned upside down," 51. 
 
 Writs of Assistance issued by Crown, 19; declared contrary 
 to Magna Cbarta, 19.