Class £/ 2 $£> Book *A /6& C&&44 *K«. ''It still waves.'' Forever float that standard sheet." CENTENNIAL ODE, / / The above was delivered at the Academy of Music, New York July 4th 1876, and is photo-en graved from the Author's manuscript, furnished expressly for This volume. T2* M m \ : i Ik ===siBi K. B. TREAT, 5 COOPER UNION. ■W ■ ADDRESSES HISTORICAL CENTENNIAL AND AND PATRIOTIC QUADRENNIAL DELIVERED IN THE SEVERAL STATES OF THE UNION JULY 4th, 1876-1883. INCLUDING ADDRESSES COMMEMORATIVE OF THE FOUR HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 1892-1893. EDITED BY FREDERICK SAUNDERS, A.M. LIBKARIAN OF THE ASTOR LIBRARY. NEW YORK : E. B. TREAT, 5 COOPER UNION, CHICAGO: R. C. TREAT. BOSTON: J. Q. ADAMS & CO. 1893. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1877, by E. B. TREAT. in the Office of the Libarian of Congress, at Washington. Copyright. 1893. Notice. — Many of the orations, addresses and poems in this volume are published for the first time by exclusive arrangements with the re. spective authors. The public are cautioned against their use except by permission of E. B. TREAT, Publisher. PREFACE. This work, which groups together the choicest of the eloquent and patriotic Orations, Addresses and Poems, delivered in the several States of the Union, on our Centennial Anniversary, being issued under the auspices of the respective authors — the docu- ments having been submitted to their critical super- vision, — forms an authorized and enduring monument of that memorable epoch in our national annals. Amonor these clustered flowers of rhetoric will be found many of singular beauty and grace ; forming as they do, a many-hued garland of rare excellence, worthy of the occasion which celebrates the festival and fruitage of our first century. A glance at the table of contents will reveal a brilliant array of dis- tinguished names as contributors to the volume «? amonof their number are the following : — Hon. W. M. Evarts, Hon. R. C. Winthrop, Rev. Dr. Storrs, Ex-Gov. Seymour, Rev. Dr. L. Bacon, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. Henry Barnard, Gov. Cheney, Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Gov. Cullora, Rev. Dr. C. H. Fowler, Chancellor Parker, Gen. J. A. Dix, J. G. Whittier, W. C. Bryant, Bayard Taylor, &c., &c. The work is cosmopolitan in the strictest sense of the term. It most strikingly illustrates the freedom of speech and opinion, characteristic of our country. Here are represented the varieties of social distinc- PREF ACE. lion among men, — white and black, Jew and Chris- tian, Protestant and Catholic, and even the aborig- inal Red Man of the forest. As a commemorative record of the most brilliant bursts of oratory, inspired by the enthusiasm of the occasion, and as a perma- nent treasury of historic data and valuable statistical information, the work will at once commend itself to all persons of culture and judgment. With such combined attractions, it makes its appeal, alike to the statesman, the student and the general reader. Although primarily prepared for the American public it is no less adapted to the rest of the world, since it presents an epitome of our progress, and social, civil and political status among the nations. CONTENTS. [The orations following Pennsylvania are given in the order of the admission of the States into the Union. The oration from the District of Columbia follows the original thirteen States.J Wm. Cullen Bryant ; Centennial Ode, [facsimile of original manuscript] Frontispiece. Page Preface 3 Contents 5 John G. Whittier ; National Hymn 12 Introduction 13 His Majesty, William, Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia ; Congratulatory Letter 15 PENNS YL VA NIA . PHILADELPHIA. Gen. Joseph R. Hawley ; Introductory Address 16 Hon. Thomas W. Ferry, Vice-President of the United States ; Address 17 Right Rev. Wm. Bacon Stevens, D.D., LL.D.; Prayer. . . 19 Oliver Wendell Holmes ; Hymn — Welcome to All Nations. 21 / Bayard Taylor ; Centennial Ode 22 Dexter Smith ; March— Our National Banner 32 Hon. Wm. M. Evarts ; What the Age Owes to America. . . 33 1/ PITTSBURGH. Hon. Felix R. Brunot ; The Genius of America 62 Hon. John M. Kirkpatrick ; Echoes from Lexington and Bunker Hill. . . . , 65 DOVLESTOVV1V. Hon. Henry Chapman ; The Magnificent Present 74 Hon. George Lear ; The Beacon Fires of Liberty 76 DEL A WARE. WILMINGTON. Hon. John O'Byrne ; The Matchless Story 88 NEW JERSEY. NEWARK. Hon. Cortlandt Parker ; The Open Bible 92 GEORGIA. SAVANNAH. Col. Albert R. Lamar ; Address 119 G CONTENTS. CONNECTICUT. HARTFORD. Hon. Eeney Barnard, L.L.D.; Centennial Growth in Na- tionality, [ndustries and Education 120 Rev. Joseph 11. Twitchell; The Grand Mission of America. 128 NEW II AVION. Gen'l Joseph It. Hawley; Address 10 Prof. Leonard Bacon, D.D.; New Haven One Hundred Years Ago 131 MA SSA CHU SETTS. BOSTON. Hon. Robert C. Winthiiop ; A Century of Self-Government. 145 Oliver Wendell Holmes ; Hyrnn — Welcome to All Nations. 21 TAUNTON. Hon. Charles Francis Adams ; The Progress of Liberty. . 197 H1NOHA1W. Hon. Brooks Adams ; The Cost of Popular Liberty. . . . 221 WORCESTER. Hon. Benj. Franklin Thomas ; The New Century 215 MARYLAND. BALTIMORE. Dr. J. J. M. Sellman ; The Free Institutions of America. . 229 Gen'l F. C. Latrobe ; Our National Emblem 235 SO UTH CA R OLINA . AIKEN. Dr. Fred. A. Palmer ; Poem — A Centennial Retrospect. . 237 NEW HAMPSHIRE. MANCHESTER. Hon. P. C. Cheney ; Address 239 Judge Isaac W. Smith ; The First Century of Our Republic. 245 Hon. Lewis W. Clark ; The Destiny of the Republic. . . . 240 Joseph Kidder ; The Perpetuity of the Republic 251 Miss Clara B. Heath ; Poem — The Year of Jubilee. . . . 254 VIRGINIA. PORTSMOUTH. Prof. J. M. Langston, LL.D. ; The National Utterances, and Achievements of Our First Century 257 YORKTOWN. His Excellency, Chester A. Arthur, President of the United States ; Welcome to the Guests of the Nation, Oct. 19, 1881 880 Uun. II. <\ Winthroi'; The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis. . 881 CONTENTS. 7 NEW YORK. NEW YORK CITY. Ex-Gov. John A.Dix; Address 270 Rev. R. S. Storrs, D. D., L. L. D.; The Rise of Constitutional Liberty 271 Hon. Wm. M. EvARTS ; What the Age Owes to America 33 Wm. Cullen Bryant ; Centennial Ode •. . . 356 Bayard Taylor ; Song of 1876 320 Hon. Fernando Wood ; Democracy the Hope of the Nation 321 Hon. Richard O'Gorman; The Grandeur of Our Republic 328 Judge H. A. Gildersleeve ; American Citizenship 341 Rev. Morgan Dix, D. D. ; The Hand of God in History 343 Rev. Thomas Armitage, D. D.; Our National Influence 351 Rev. H. H. Birkins ; Our Flag 348 PEEKSKILl,. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher ; The Advance of a Century 357 NORTHPIKLD, STATEN ISLAND. Hon. Geo. Wm. Curtis ; Our Noble Heritage 375 ROME. Ex. Gov. Horatio Seymour ; The Future of the Human Race. . .381 BINGHAMPTON. Rev. J. P. Gulliver, D. D.; Our Success— Our Future 410 SYRVCUSE. Hon. Thomas G. Alvord ; The Nation's Jubilee 398 BUFFALO. Rev. Authur E. Chester, D. T). ; The Experiment of a Free Government , 437 Hon. Geo. W. Clinton ; The Spirit of 1876 *. 426 J. W. Barker ; Centennial Hymn 444 ALBANY. Alfred B. Street ; A Centennial Hymn— Our Land 445 PALMYRA. Hon. Theodore Bacon ; The Triumphs of the Republic 446 NORTH CAROLINA. VVILLINGTON, MOOR'S CREEK. Judge Edw'd Cantwell ; Union and Reconciliation 459 RHODE ISLAND. PROVIDENCE. Rev. Jeremiah Taylor, D. D. ; Our Republic , 468 Hon. Sam'l G. Arnold ; Providence, Past, Present and Future. .477 8 CONTENTS. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. VASIIINGTOV. Hon. L A. GobrIGHT ; A Resume of American History 487 Prof. J. M. Langston, L. L. D. ; The National Utterances and Achievements of our First Century 257 VERMONT. BURLINGTON. Hon. Daniel Roberts ; Centennial Address 498 Hon. Lucius E. Chittenden ; The Character of the Early Settlers of Vermont and its Influence upon their Posterity 499 KENTUCKY. COVINGTON. Hon. Wm. E. Authur ; The American Age Contrasted 522 TENNESSEE. NASHVILLE, Hon. J. G. M. Ramsey, M. D; The Iliad of Patriotism. 543 MEMPHIS. Hon. W. T. Avert ; Historical Address 555 INDIANA. INDIANAPOLIS. Hon. B. K. Elliott ; The Glorious Epoch 561 Rev. Wm. A. Bartlett, D. D. ; The Permanency of the Bepublic.710 OHIO. CINCINNATI. Hon. George W. C. Johnson ; Address 573 Gen'l DurbiN Ward ; The Century Reviewed 575 CLEVELAND. Hon. S. O. Griswold ; The Changes of a Century. 593 Hon. Harvey Rice ; Address 617 COLUMBUS. Hon. Geo. L. Converse ; Progress of the Human Race 609 MISSOURI. ST. LOUIS. Rev. R. A. Holland ; Democracy in Danger 618 LOUISIANA. NEW ORLEANS. Rev. Hugh Miller Thompson, D. D. ; Nation Building 729 SHREVEPORT. Rev. T. I. BEASON, D. D.America and Judaism 729 CONTENTS. y MICHIGAN. DETROIT. Hon. Theodore Romeyn ; National Perils and Safeguards 638 Mayor A. Lewis ; Introductory Address 653 Eev. Wm. Aikman, D. D.; An Address 65 ° ILLINOIS. GENESEO. Gov. Shelby M. Cullom ; The Distinctive Features of the Republic.654 LENA, Hon. Andrew Shuman ; Warnings for the Future 722 AURORA. Rev. Wm. A. Bartlett, D.D. ; The Permanency of the Eepublic.710 CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. Rev. C. H. Fowler, L. L. D.; Illinois, Resources and Record. 662 Rev. Rob't Collyer, D. D.; A Talk to the Citizens of La Crosse. 765 PEORIA. Col. Rob't G. Ingersoll ; The Meaning of the Declaration 694 MISSISSIPPI. JACKSON. Rev. T. I. Beason, D. D. ; America and Judaism 729 Miss Sarah Dougherty ; Centennial Address 733 ALABAMA. MONTGOMERY. Gov. J. W. Watts ; The Fundamental Principles of 1876 736 MAINE. PORTLAND. Hon. Geo. F. Talbot ; The Nation's Birthday 745 ARKANSAS. FORT SMITH. Judge I. C. Parker; Centennial Oration 756 WISCONSIN. LA CROSSE. Rev. Rob't Collyer, D. D. ; A Talk to the Citizens of La Crosse .765 MADISON. Prof. S. H. Carpenter, L. L. D.; Elements of Our Prosperity . 776 JANESVILLE. Prof. A. L. Chapin, D. D; The Relation of Education to the State .785 Prof. S. S. Rockford ; The Influence of Popular Education upon the Nation 788 10 CONTENTS. IOWA. DAVENPORT. Hon. John F. Dillon ; Our Duty and Responsibility 793 FLORIDA. •JACKSONVILLE. Hon. Columbus Drew ; Memories of the Past 809 TEXAS. GALVESTON. Col. George Flourney ; The First Century Day of the Nation . .815 CALIFORNIA. SAN FRANCISCO. Rev. Horatio Stebbins, D. D. ; Human Progress 824 T. J. Spear, Esq.; Centennial Hymn 836 MINNESOTA. ST. PAUL. Ex-Go V. C. K. Davis ; The Permanency of Our Institutions 837 OREGON. PORTLAND. Sam'l L. Simpson, Esq. ; Poem— The Pounded Age 849 KANSAS. LEAVENWORTH. Gen'l Nelson A. Miles ; Welcome to the Coming Century 857 Col. J. H. Gilpatrick ; The Incomparable Republic 859 L. M. Goddard, Esq.; The Glory, Growth and Greatness of America. 862 W. VIRGINIA. WHEELING. Gov. John I. Jacobs ; The Temple of National Liberty 864 NEBRASKA. OMAHA. MAYOR C S. Chase ; 1776 Contrasted with 1876 866 COLORADO. DENVER, Gov. J. L. Routt ; Centennial Address 873 NEVADA. GOLD HILL, Hon. C. E. De Long ; Freedom's Grand Review 874 CONTENTS. 11 COLUMBIAN CELEBRATION. Hon. RobertO. Wintheop; The surrender of Lord Corn wall is. 879 Rev. W. K. Huntington, I). I).; The Meaning of the Multitude. 934 Rev. David Gregg, U.D.; Columbus mid His Forerunners. . 941 Rev. Robert S. Macarthur, D.D. ; Columbus a Modern Abraham 959 Rev. Joseph Sanderson, !).!>.; Columbus in History. . . . 973 Thoughts Pertinent to the Celebration, 1892 976 Rev. H. M. Smith, Rev. J. N. Steele, D.D., Rev. G. R. Van de Water, D.I >., Rev. H. Y. Satterlee, D.D., Rev. -I. W. Brown, D.D., Rev. W. S. Rainsford, D.D., Rev. E. S. Hollowav, Rev. J. H. Rylance, D.D., Rev.W. H. P. Faunee, Rev. J. H. Vandyke, Rev. 1). G. Wylie, Rev. C. H. Eaton, Rev. J. B. Shaw, D.D., Rev. C. H. Parkhurst, D.D., Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, D.D., Rev. Madison Peters, Rev. Father O'Reilly. Four Hundred Years of American History; Views of Emi- nent Men 983 Rev. J. L. Withrow. D.D., Rev. Frank Russell, D.D., Rev. C. L. Thompson, D.D., Rev. Talbot W. Chambers, D.D., Rev. James H. Whiton, Ph.D., Rev. John L. Scudder, Rev. Robert F. Sample, D.D., Rev. Epher Whitaker, D.D., Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts, Rev. Russell H. Conwell. His Excellency, Benjamin Harrison, President of the U. S. ; Discovery Day Proclamation -1001 Hon. Hempstead Washburn, Mayor of Chicago; Address at Dedication of World's Fair Buildings 1003 Hon. T. W. Palmer, President of the World's Columbian Ex- hibition; Address— The Great Aim of the Columbian Exhi- bition 1000 Hon. Levi P. Morton, Vice-President U. S.; Address. . .1009 Hon. Henry Watterson; The Age of Progress and Good Feeling 1015 Hon. ChaunceyM. Depew; Oration at Chicago, Oct. 22,1892.1024 Rev. Wm. H. MlLBURN, D.D.; Invocation, World's Fair Open- ing, May 1st, 1893 1039 Hon. George R. Davis, Director-General; Opening Address May 1st, 1893 1042 His Excellency, Grover Cleveland, President of the U. S. ; Address at Opening Exercises 1047 CENTENNIAL HYMN. BY JOHN G. WHITTIER. MUSIC BY JOHN E. PAINE OF MASSACHUSETTS, Sung by One Thousand Voices of the Centennial Choral Society at the Opening of the Centennial Exposition, May 10, 1876. Oar fathers' God ! from out whose hand The centuries fall like grains of sand, We meet to-day, united, free, And loyal to our land and Thee, To thank Thee for the era done, And trust Thee for the opening one. Here, where of old, by Thy design, The fathers spake that word of Thine, Whose echo is the glad refrain Of rended bolt and falling chain, To grace our festal time, from all The zones of earth our guests we call. Be with us while the new world greets The old world thronging all its streets Unvailing all the triumphs won By art or toil beneath the sun ; And unto common good ordain This rivalship of hand and brain. Thou, who hast here in concord furled The war flags of a gathered world, Beneath our Western skies fulfill The Orient's mission of good will, And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece, Send back the Argonauts of peace. INTRODUCTORY. Less than half a century ago, memorable words were ut- tered, on a certain occasion, by one of England's greatest thinkers, which may be said to have received from our na- tional history, if not their accomplishment, at least their successful illustration. "The tree parliament of a free peo- ple is the native soil of eloquence, and in that soil will it ever flourish and abound — there it will produce those in- tellectual effects, which, drive before them whole tribes and nations of the human race, and settle the destinies of men." Our Republic, founded by our Pilgrim fathers upon the Bible, with civil and religious liberty for its charter — when contrasted with the several States of Europe, may be said to be unique ; since, to quote the words of Carlyle ; " They are ever in baleful oscillation, afloat as amid raging eddies and conflicting sea-currents, not steadfast as on fixed foun- dations," — whilst a century of progressive strength attests the enduring stability of our country. Castelar has also de- clared that " Saxon America, with its immense virgin ter- ritories, with its republic, with its equilibrium between stability and progress, is the continent of the future ; stretched as it is by God, between the Atlantic and the Pa- cific — where mankind may plant, essay, and resolve all so- cial problems." Youngest in the great family of nations, America is thus found in the foremost rank of our Christian civilization. Although as a nation, she may not boast of the " antique glories of the classic arts," yet has she shared liberally with others of maturer growth, in the triumphs of modern genius and inventive skill, while she may pre-eminently claim the honor of having given to the world the well-attested illus- tration of the feasibility of popular self-government. " This is thy praise America ! Thy power ! Thou best of climes by Science visited, — By Freedom blest 1 " INTRODUCTORY. History has its representative eras, as well as its repre- sentative men ; and our American Republic lias in this, its first century, been eminently signalized by both. No century of the world's history has been so replete with grand events, or ennobled by so many illustrious names as ours. No epoch has been characterized by such mag- nificent achievements in science, art, literature, aesthetic culture and popular education. It was one of President Lincoln's quaint but expressive remarks made in reference to our recent struggle, that " this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of Freedom, that governments of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." We have, like other nations, had our revo- lutionary or heroic age, as well as our age of progressive cul- ture, physical and moral. The former has transformed vast wildernesses into fertile fields, decked with happy homes and cities. The other, as by the enchanter's wand, has " called into being a broad empire of self-governed, industrious and prosperous millions." Justly proud of our signal prosperity, we hail with triumph the glorious present, with our national escutcheon thus honored before the world. It has been aptly remarked that the " Declaration of Independence " by its recognition of the " Rights of Man," gave a new impetus to political morality, and marked a new era of intellectual revolt against old established institutions and modes of thought. It was natural and fitting, therefore, that America should be the theatre where the great problem of popular liberty and self-government should be solved. Nor was that the only grand result achieved — the captive has been made free, the barriers that, for so long a time, had separated the races, have been removed ; Civil and Re- ligious liberty, our boasted national inheritance should thus become to us a benison inexpressibly precious, in- spiring us with " a truer reverence for the past, a purer patriotism and more exalted aims for the present, with an exultant and hopeful anticipation for the future.." GREETING FROM GERMANY. Mr. Schlozer, the German Minister, was instructed by His Majesty, "William, Empekok of Germany, to deliver to the President of the United States, upon" the 4th of July, an autograph letter of congratulation upon the occasion of the Centennial Anniversary. A translation of the letter is as follows : " "William, by the Grace of- God, Emperor of Germany, King of Prussia, &c. To the President of the United States : Great and Good Friend : It has been vouchsafed to you to celebrate the Centennial festival of the day upon which the great Piepublic over which you preside entered the rank of inde- pendent nations. The purposes of its founders have, by a wise application of the teachings of the history of the foundation of nations, and with insight into the distant future, been realized by a development without a parallel. To congratulate you and the American people upon the occasion affords me so much the greater pleasure, because, since the treaty of friendship, which my ancestor of glorious memory, King Frederic II, who now rests with God, concluded with the United States, undisturbed friendship has continually existed between Germany and Amer- ica, and has been developed and strengthened by the ever- increasing importance of their mutual relations, and by an intercourse, becoming more and more fruitful, in every domain of commerce and science. That the welfare of the United States, and the friendship of the two countries, may continue to increase, is my sincere desire and confident hope. Accept the renewed assurance of my unqualified esteem. William. [Countersigned] Von Bismarck. Berlin, June 9th 1876." OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. July 4, 1816. The opening exercises of the One Hundredth Anniversary of our National Independence, in Philadelphia, consisted of an overture, " The Great Republic," based on the national air " Hail Columbia," by Gilmore's orchestra, arranged for the occasion by the composer George F. Bristow, of New Tork, and was followed by THE INTRODUCTION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE DAT, BY JOSEPH R. HAWLEY, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES CENTENNIAL COMMISSION. Fellow-Citizens and Friends of all Nations : — One hundred years ago the Republic was proclaimed on this spot. We have come together to celebrate the day by peaceful and simple ob- servances that feebly express our wonder, our pride and our gratitude. This presence proves the good- will existing among all nations. For the strangers among us a thousand welcomes — [a great burst of applause] — for the land we love, liberty, peace, justice, prosperity, and the blessing of God to the end of time. By direction of the Commission, I have the honor to announce as the presiding officer of the day, the Hon. Thomas W. Ferry, Vice-President of the United States. SPEECH OF HON. THOS. W. FERRY, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, DELIVERED AT PHILADELPHIA, .JULY 4tH, 1876. Citizens of our Centennial : — The regretful absence of the President of the United States casts on me the honor of pre- siding on this eventful occasiou. Much as I value the official distinction, I prize much more the fact that severally we hold, and successfully we maintain, the right to the prouder title of American citizen. It ranks all others. It makes office, un- makes officers and creates States. One hundred years ago, in yonder historic structure, heroic statesmen sat, and gravely chose between royal rule and popular sovereignty. Inspired with the spirit which animated the Roman sage on Mars' Hill, who declared that of one blood were made all nations of men, Continental sages echoed in Independence Hall their immortal declaration that all men are created free and equal. Appealing to the God of justice and of battle for the rectitude and firmness of their purpose, they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the abstract principle of the freedom and equality of the human race. To-day, in this rounding hour of a century, appealing to the game God of justice and of peace, we praise Him for, and pledge our hves, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to maintain the spirit of that Declaration now made universal by the fundamen- tal law of the land. We, the people of the United States, in this Centennial memorial, pay double tribute to the Most High — one of grateful acknowledgment of the fulfilled pledge of our fathers to overthrow royalism, — the other of joyful assurance of the ful- filling pledge of their sons to uphold republicanism. The great powers of the earth honor the spirit of American fidelity to the 18 OtTR NATIONAL JUBILEE. cause of human freedom by the exhibition of their arts and by the presence of their titled peers to grace and dignify the world's homage paid to the centennial genius of American liberty. Three millions of people grown to forty-three millions ; and thirteen Colonies enlarged to a nation of thirty-seven States, with the thirty-eighth — the Centennial State — forsaking eight Territories, and on the threshold of the Union; abiding execu- tive admission ; these attest the forecast and majesty of the Declaration of 1776. It was nothing short of the utterance of the sovereignty of manhood and the worth of American citizen- ship. Its force is fast supplanting the assumption of the divine right of kings, by virtue of the supreme law of the nation that the people alone hold the sole power to rule. Nations succeed each other in following the example of this republic, and the force of American institutions bids fan- to bring about a general reversal of the source of political power. "Whenever that period shall come, Great Britain, so magnanimous in presence on this auspicious era, will then, if not before, praise the events when American Independence was won under Washington, and when Freedom and equality of races were achieved under Lin- coln and Grant. PRAYER BY THE RT. REV. WM. BACON STEVENS, D.D., L.L.D., BISHOP OF PENNSYLVANIA, USED AT THE GRAND CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION IN PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876. Almighty and Eternal God, we come before Thee to praise Thy glorious name, and to give Thee most bumble and hearty thanks, for the inestimable blessings which as a Nation we this day enjoy. We devoutly recognize Thy Fatherly hand in the planting and nurturing of these colonies, in carrying them through the perils and trials of war ; in establishing them in peace ; and permit- ting us to celebrate this hundredth birthday of our Independ- ence. We thank Thee, God, that Thou didst inspire the hearts of Thy servants to lay here the foundations of peace and liberty ; to proclaim here those principles which have wrought out for us such civil and religious blessings ; and to set up here a Government which Thou hast crowned by Thy blessing, and guarded by Thy hand to this day. The whole praise and glory of these great mercies we ascribe, God, to Thee ! " Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name be all the glory," for by Thee only, have we been led to take our present position among the nations of the earth. As Thou wast our Father's God, in times past, we beseech Thee to be our God, in all time to come. Thou hast safely brought us to the beginning of another century of national life, defend and bless us in the same, O God, with Thy mighty power. Give peace and prosperity in all our borders, unity and charity among all classes, and a true and hearty love of country to all our peo- ple. Keep far from us all things hurtful to the welfare of the .nation, and give to us all things necessary for our true growth and progress. 20 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Bless Thou Mighty Ruler of the Universe Thy servants to whom are committed the Executive, the Legislative and Judicial government of this land ; that Thou wouldst be pleased to direct, and prosper all their consultations to the advancement of Thy glory, the good of Thy Church, the safety, honor and welfare of Thy people ; that all things may be so ordered and settled by their endeavors, upon the best and surest foundations, that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and true liberty may be established among us for all generations. Make us to know, therefore, that on this day of our Nation's festivity, and to con- sider it in our hearts, that Thou art God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath, and that there is no God else beside Thee. Enable us to keep Thy statutes and Thy judgments which Thou hast commanded, that it may go well with us and with our children ; that we and they may fear Thy ranie and obey Thy law, and that Thou mayest prolong the days of this nation through all coming time. Establish Thy kingdom in the midst of this land. Make it "Emmanuel's land," a "mountain of holiness and a dwelling place of righteousness." Inspire Thy Church with the spirit of truth, unity and concord, and grant that every member of the same in his vocation and ministry may serve Thee faithfully. Bless the rulers of this city and commonwealth, and grant that they may truly and imparti- ally administer justice to the punishment of wickedness and vice, and to the maintenance of Thy true religion and virtue. Pour out Thy Fatherly blessing upon our whole country, up- on all our lawful pursuits and industries, upon all our house- holds and institutions of learning and benevolence, that rejoicing in Thy smile, and strengthened by Thy might, this nation may go on through all the years of this new century a praise and a joy of the whole earth, so that all who look upon it may be able to say, "Truly God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved. " These things and whatsoever else we need for our national preservation and perpetuity, we humbly ask, in the name and through the mediation of Thy dear Son, to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be ascribed all might, majesty, do- minion and power, world without end. Amen. WELCOME TO THE NATIONS. BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. STTNG AT PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4, 1876. I. Bright on the banners of lily and rose Lo, the last sun of our century sets ! Wreath the black cannon that scowled on our foes, All but her friendships the Nation forgets ! All but her friends and their welcome forgets ! These are around her : But where are her foes ? Lo, while the sun of her century sets Peace with her garlands of lily and rose ! H. Welcome ! a shout like the war trumpet's swell Wakes the wild echoes that slumber around ! Welcome ! it quivers from Liberty's bell ; Welcome ! the walls of her temple resound ! Hark ! the gray walls of her temple resound ! Fade the far voices o'er hill-side and dell ; Welcome ! still whisper the echoes around ; Welcome ! still trembles on Liberty's bell ! in. Thrones of the Continents ! Isles of the Sea ! Yours are the garlands of peace we entwine ; Welcome, once more, to the land of the free, Shadowed alike by the palm and the pine ; Softly they murmur, the palm and the pine ; " Hushed is our strife, in the land of the free ; " Over your children their branches entwine, Thrones of the Continents ! Isles of the Sea ! THE NATIONAL ODE. BY BAYARD TAYLOR. DELIVERED AT PHILADELPHIA. JULY 4, 1876. L— 1. Sun of the stately Day. Let Asia into the shadow drift, Let Europe bask in thy ripened ray, And over the severing ocean lift A brow of broader splendor ! Give light to the eager eyes Of the Land that waits to behold thee rise : The gladness of morning lend her, With the triumph of noon attend her, And the peace of the vesper skies! For lo ! she cometh now With hope on the lip and pride on the brow, Stronger, and dearer, and fairer, To smile on the love we bear her, — To live, as we dreamed her and sought her, Liberty's latest daughter ! In the clefts of the rocks, in the secret places, We found her traces ; On the hills, in the crash of woods that fall, We heard her call ; When the lines of battle broke, We saw her face in the fiery smoke ; Through toil, and anguish, and desolation, We followed, and found her With the grace of a virgin Nation As a sacred zone around her ! Who shall rejoice THE NATIONAL ODK. 23 With a righteous voice, Far-heard through the ages, if not she? For the menace is dumb that defied her, The doubt is dead that denied her, And she stands acknowledged, and strong and free 1 II.— 1. Ah, hark ! the solemn undertone On every wind of human story blown. A large, divinely-moulded Fate Questions the right and purpose of a State, And in its plan sublime Our eras are the dust of Time. The far-off Yesterday of power Creeps back with stealthy feet, Invades the lordship of the hour, And at our banquet takes the unbidden seat. From all unchronicled and silent ages Before the Future first begot the Past, Till History dared, at last, To write eternal words on granite pages ; From Egypt's tawny drift, and Assur's mound, And where, uplifted, white and far, Earth highest yearns to meet a star, And Man his manhood by the Ganges found, — Imperial heads, of old millennial sway, And still by some pale splendor crowned, Chill as a corpse-light in our full-orbed day, In ghostly grandeur rise And say, through stony lips and vacant eyes : "Thou that assertest freedom, power and fame, Declare to us thy claim ! " I.— 2. On the shores of a Continent cast, She won the inviolate soil 24 OUll NATIONAL JUBILEE. By loss of heirdom of all the Past, And faith in the royal right of Toil I She planted homes on the savage sod : Into the wilderness lone She walked with fearless feet In her hand the divining-rod, Till the veins of the mountains beat With fire of metal and force of stone ! She set the speed of the river-head To turn the mills of her bread ; She drove her plowshare deep Through the prairie's thousand-centuried sleep ; To the South, and West, aud North, She called Pathfinder forth, Her faithful and sole companion, Where the flushed Sierra, snowy-starred, Her way to the sunset barred, And the nameless rivers in thunder and foam Channeled the terrible canyon ! Nor paused, till her uttermost home Was built, in the smile of a softer sky And the glory of beauty still to be, Where the haunted waves of Asia die On the strand of the world-wide seal II.— 2. The race, in conquering, Some fierce Titanic joy of conquest knows Whether in veins of serf or king, Our ancient blood beats restless in repose, Challenge of Nature unsubdued Awaits not Man's defiant answer long; For hardship, even as wrong, Provokes the level-eyed, heroic mood. This for herself she did ; but that which lies, As over earth the skies, THE NATIONAL ODE. 25 Blending all forms in one benignant glow, — Crowned conscience, tender care, Justice, that answers every bondman's prayer, Freedom where Faith may lead or Thought may dare, The power of minds that know, Passion of hearts that feel, Purchased by blood and woe, Guarded by fire and steel. — Hath she secured ? What blazon on her shield, In the clear Century's light Shines to the world revealed, Declaring nobler triumph, born of Right? I.— 3. Foreseen in the vision of sages, Foretold when martyrs bled, She was born of the longing ages, By the truth of the noble dead And the fate of the living fed ! No blood in her lightest veins Frets at remembered chains, Nor shame of bondage has bowed her head. In her form and features still The unblenching Puritan will, Cavalier honor, Huguenot grace, The Quaker truth and sweetness, And the strength of the danger-girdled race Of Holland, blend in a proud completeness. From the homes of all, where her being began, She took what she gave to Man : Justice, that knew no station, Belief, as soul decreed, Free air for aspiration, Free force for independent deed ! She takes, but to give again, As the sea returns the rivers in ruin ; 26 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. And gathers the chosen of her seed From the hunted of every crown and creed. Her Germany dwells by a gentler Rhine ; Her Ireland sees the old sunbursts shine ; Her France pursues some dream divine ; Her Norway keeps his mountain pine ; Her Italy waits by the wesern brine ; And broad-based under all, Is planted England's oaken-hearted mood, As rich in fortitude As e'er went worldward from the island-wall ! Fused in her candid light, To one strong race all races here unite : Tongues melt in hers, hereditary foemen Forget their sword and slogan, kith and clan ; 'Twas glory, once, to be a Roman ; She makes it glory, now, to be a Man ! II.— 3. Bow down ! Doff thine geonion crown ! One hour forget The glory, and recall the debt Make expiation, Of humbler mood, For the pride of thine exultation O'er peril conquered and strife subdued ! But half the right is wrested When victory yields her prize, And half the marrow tested When old endurance dies. In the sight of them that love thee, Bow to the Greater that above thee ! He faileth not to smite The idle ownership of Right, Nor spares to sinews fresh from trial, THE NATIONAL ODE. 27 And virtue schooled in long denial, The tests that wait for thee In larger perils of prosperity. Here, at the Century's awful shrine, Bow to thy father's God— and thine ! I.— 4. Behold! she bendeth now, Humbling the chaplet of her hundredyears: There is a solemn sweetness on her brow, And in her eyes are sacred tears. Can she forget. In present joy, the burden of her debt, When for a captive race She grandly staked and won The total promise of her power begun, And bared her bosom's grace To the sharp wound that inly tortures yet ? Can she forget The million graves her young devotion set, The hands that clasp above From either side, in sad, returning love? Can she forget ? Here, where the Ruler of to-day, The Citizen of to-morrow, And equal thousands to rejoice and pray Beside these holy walls are met, Her birth-cry, mixed of keenest bliss and sorrow' Where, on July's immortal morn Held forth, the People saw her head And shouted to the world : " The King is dead, But lo ! the Heir is born I" When fire of Youth, and sober trust of Age, In Farmer, Soldier, Priest and Sage, Arose and cast upon her Baptismal garments, — never robes so fair • 2$ OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Clad prince in Old-World air, — Their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. II.— 4. Arise ! Re-crown thy head, Eadiant with blessing of the Dead ! Bear from this hallowed place The prayer that purifies thy lips, The light of courage that defies eclipse, The rose of Man's new morning on thy face? Let no iconoclast Invade thy rising Pantheon of the Past, To make a blank where Adams stood, To touch the Father's sheathed and sacred blade, Spoil crowns on Jefferson and Franklin laid, Or wash from Freedom's feet the stain of Lincoln's blood 1 Hearken, as from that haunted hall Their voices call : " We lived and died for thee : We greatly dared that thou mightst be : So, from thy children still We claim denials which at last fulfil,' And freedom yielded to preserve thee free I Beside clear-hearted Right That smiles at Power's uplifted rod, Plant Duties that requite, And Order that sustains, upon thy sod, And stand in stainless might Above all self, and only less than God ?" III.— 1. Here may thy solemn challenge end, All-proving Past, and each discordance die Of doubtful augury, Or in one choral with the Present blend, And that half-heard, sweet harmony THE NATI0NA1, ODE. 29 Of something nobler that our sons may see ! Though poignant memories burn Of days that were, and may again return, When thy fleet foot, O Huntress of the Woods, Thy slippery brinks of danger knew, And dim the eyesight grew That was so sure in thine old solitudes, — Yet stays some richer sense Won from the mixture of thine elements, To guide the vagrant scheme, And winnow truth from each conflicting dream ! Yet in thy blood shall live Some force unspent, some essence primitive, To seize the highest use of things ; For Fate, to mold thee to her plan, Denied thee food of kings, Withheld the udder and the orchard-fruits, Fed thee with savage roots, And forced thy harsher milk from barren breasts of man ! HI.— 2. O sacred Woman-Form, Of the first People's need and passion wrought, — No thin, pale ghost of Thought, But fair as Morning and as heart's-blood warm, — Wearing thy priestly tiar on Judah's hills ; Clear-eyed beneath Athene's helm of gold; Or from Rome's central seat Hearing the pulses of the Continents beat In thunder where her Jegions rolled ; Compact of high heroic hearts and wills, Whose being circles all The selfless aims of men, and all fulfills ; Thyself not free, so long as one is thrall ; Goddess, that as a Nation lives, And as a Nation dies, 30 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. That for her children as a man defies, And to her children as a mother gives, — Take our fresh fealty now ! No more a Chieftainess, with wampum-zone And feather-cinctured brow, — ~No more a new Britannia, grown To spread an equal banner to the breeze, And lift thy trident o'er the double seas ; But with unborrowed crest, In thine own native beauty dressed, — The front of pure command, the unflinching eye, thine own ! III.— 3. Look up, look forth, and on ! There's light in the dawning sky : The clouds are parting, the night is gone : Prepare for the work of the day ! Fallow thy pastures lie And far thy shepherds stray, And the fields of thy vast domain Are waiting for purer seed Of knowledge, desire, and deed, For keener sunshine and mellower rain ! But keep thy garments pure : Pluck them back, with the old disdain, From touch of the hands that stain ! So shall thy strength endure. Transmute into good the gold of Gain, Compel to beauty thy ruder powers, Till the bounty of coming hours Shall plant, on thy fields apart, With the oak of Toil, the rose of Art ! Be watchful, and keep us so : Be strong, and fear no foe : Be just, and the world shall know I With the same love, love us, as we give ; THE NATIONAL ODE. 31 And the day shall never come, That finds us weak or dumb To join and smite and cry In the great task, for thee to die, And the greater task, for thee to live 1 OUE NATIONAL BANNEK. "A GRAND TRIUMPHAL MARCH." BY DEXTER SMITH, RENDERED AT PHILADELPHIA JULY, 4, 1876. I. O'er the high and o'er the lowly Floats that banner bright and holy In the rays of freedom's sun ; In the nation's heart imbedded, O'er our Union newly wedded, One in all, and all in one. II. Let the banner wave forever. May its lustrous stars fade never, Till the stars shall pale on high ; While there's right the wrong defeating, While there's hope in true heart beating, Truth and freedom shall not die. III. As it floated long before us, Be it ever floating o'er us, O'er our land from shore to shore ; There are freemen yet to wave it, Millions who would die to save it, — Wave it, save it evermore. WHAT THE AGE OWES TO AMERICA. AN ORATION DELIVERED BY WILLIAM M. EVARTS, AT PHILADELPHIA, JULY 4TH, 1876. I. The event which to-day we commemorate supplies its own re- flections and enthusiasms and brings its own plaudits. They do not at all hang on the voice of the speaker, nor do they greatly depend upon the contacts and associations of the place. The Declaration of American Independence was, when it occurred, a capital transaction in human affairs ; as such it has kept its place in history ; as such it will maintain itself while human interest in human institutions shall endure. The scene and the actors, for their profound impression upon the world, at the time and ever since, have owed nothing to dramatic effects, no- thing to epical exaggerations. To the eye there was nothing wonderful, or vast, or splendid, or pathetic in the movement or the display. Imagination or art can give no sensible grace or decoration to the persons, the place, or the performance, which made up the business of that day. The worth and force that belong to the agents and the action rest wholly on the wisdom, the courage, and the faith that formed and executed the great design, and the potency and permanence of its operation upon the affairs of the world which, as foreseen and legitimate conse- quences, followed. The dignity of the act is the deliberate, cir- cumspect, open, and serene performance by these men in the clear light of day, and by a concurrent purpose of a civic duty, which embraced the greatest hazards to themselves and to all the people from whom they held this deputed discretion, but which, to their sober judgments, promised benefits to that people and their posterity, from generation to generation, exceeding these hazards and commensurate with its own fitness. The question of their conduct is to be measured by the actual weight and pressure of the manifold considerations which surrounded the subject before them, and by the abundant evidence that they comprehended their vastness and variety. By a voluntary and responsible choice they willed to do what was done and what, 34 OCR NATIONAL JUBILEE. without their will, would not have been done. Thus estimated, the illustrious act covers all who participated in it with its own renown, and makes them forever conspicuous among men, as it is forever famous among events. And thus the signers of the Declaration of our Independence " wrote their names where all nations should behold them, and all time should not efface them." It was, " in the course of human events," intrusted to them to determine whether the fulness of time had come when a nation should be born in a day. They declared the independence of a new nation in the sense in which men declare emancipa- tion or declare war ; the declaration created what was declared. Famous always, among men, are the founders of States, and fortunate above all others in such fame are these, our fathers, whose combined wisdom and courage began the great structure of our national existence, and laid sure the foundations of liberty and justice on which it rests. Fortunate, first, in the clearness of their title and in the world's acceptance of their rightful claim. Fortunate, next, in the enduring magnitude of the State they founded and the benificence of its protection of the vast interests of human life and happiness which have here had their home. Fortunate, again, in the admiring imitation of their work, which the institutions of the most powerful and most advanced nations more and more exhibit ; and last of all, fortu- nate in the full demonstration of our later time that their work is adequate to withstand the most disastrous storms of human fortunes, and survive unwrecked, unshaken and unharmed. This day has now been celebrated by a great people, at each recurrence of its anniversary, for a hundred years, with every form of ostentatious joy, with every demonstration of respect and gratitude for the ancestral virtue which gave it its glory, and with the firmest faith that growing time should neither ob- scure its lustre nor reduce the ardor or discredit the sincerity of its observance. A reverent spirit has explored the lives of the men who took part in the great transaction ; has unfolded their characters and exhibited to an admiring posterity the purity of their motives ; the sagacity, the bravery, the fortitude, the per- severance which marked their conduct, and which secured the prosperity and permanence of their work. O&ATlOlSr — WILLIAM M. EVARTS. $5 II. Philosophy has divined the secrets of all this power, and elo- Grandeur of tbe quence emblazoned the magnificence of all its re- work of 1776. suits The heroic war which fought out the acqui- escence of the Old World in the independence of the New; the manifold and masterly forms of noble character and of patient and serene wisdom which the great influences of the times begat; the large and splendid scale on which these elevated purposes were wrought out, and the majestic proportions to which they have been filled up ; the unended line of eventful progress, cast- ing ever backward a flood of light upon the sources of the origi- nal energy, and ever forward a promise and a prophecy of unex- hausted power — all these have been made familiar to our people by the genius and the devotion of historians and orators. The greatest statesmen of the Old World for this same period of 100 years have traced the initial step in these events, looked into the nature of the institutions thus founded, weighed by the Old World wisdom, and measured by recorded experience, the prob- able fortunes of this new adventure on an unknown sea. This circumspect and searching survey of our wide field of political and social experiment, no doubt, has brought them a diversity of judgment as to the past and of expectation as to the future. But of the magnitude and the novelty and the power of the for- ces set at work by the event we commemorate, no competent authorities have ever greatly differed. The eotevnporary judg- ment of Burke is scarcely an overstatement of the European opinion of the immense import of American independence. He declared : " A great revolution has happened — a revolution made, not by chopping and changing of power in any of the ex- isting States, but by the appearance of a new State, of a new species, in a new part of the globe. It has made as great a change in all the relations and balances and gravitations of power as the appearance of a new planet would in the system of the solar world." It is easy to understand that the rupture between the Colo- nies and the mother country might have worked a result of po- litical independence that would have involved no such mighty consequences as are here so strongly announced by the most 36 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. philosophic statesman of his age. The resistance of the Colo- nies, which came to a head in the revolt, was led in the name and for the maintenance of the liberties of Englishmen, against Parliamentary usurpation and a subversion of the British Con- stitution. A triumph of those liberties might have ended in an emancipation from the rule of the English Parliament, and a continued submission to the scheme and system of the British monarchy, with an American Parliament adjusted thereto, upon the true principles of the English Constitution. Whether this new political establishment should have maintained loyalty to the British sovereign, or should have been organized under a crown and throne of its own, the transaction would, then, have had no other importance than such as belongs to a dismember- ment of existing empire, but with preservation of existing insti- tutions. There would have been, to be sure, a " new state," but not " of a new species," and that it was "in a rew part of the globe " would have gone far to make the dismemberment but a temporary and circumstantial disturbance in the old order of things. Indeed, the solidity and perpetuity of that order might have been greatly confirmed by this propagation of the model of the European monarchies on the boundless regions of this continent. It is precisely here that the Declaration of Independence has its immense importance. As a civil act, and by the people's de- cree — and not by the achievement of the army, or through military motives — at the first stage of the conflict it assigned a new nationality, with its own institutions^. as the civilly preor- dained end to be fought for and secured. It did not leave it to be an after-fruit of triumphant war, shaped and measured by mil- itary power, and conferred by the army on the people. This as- sured at the outset the supremacy of civil over military author- ity, the subordination of the army to the unarmed people. This deliberative choice of the scope and goal of the Revolu- tion made sure of two things, which must have been always greatly in doubt, if military reasons and events had held the mastery over the civil power. The first was, that nothing less than the independence of the nation, and its separation from the system of Europe, would be attained if our arms were prosper- ORATION WILLIAM M EVARTS. 37 ous; and the second, that the new nation would always be the mistress of its own institutions. This might not have been its fate had a triumphant army won the prize of independence, not as a task set for it by the people, and done in its service, but by its own might, and held by its own title, and so to be shaped and dealt with by its own will. III. There is the best reason to think that the Congress which de- Objects of the clared our independence gave its chief solicitude, not Revolution, to the hazards of military failure, not to the chance of miscarriage in the project of separation from England, but to the grave responsibility of the military success — of which they made no doubt — and as to what should replace, as government to the new nation, the monarchy of England, which they con- sidered as gone to them forever from the date of the Declaration. Nor did this Congress feel any uncertainty, either in disposition or expectation, that the natural and necessary result would pre- clude the formation of the new Government out of any other materials than such as were to be found in society as established on this side of the Atlantic. These materials they foresaw were capable of, and would tolerate, only such political establishment as would maintain and perpetuate the equality and liberty al- ways enjoyed in the several colonial communities. But all these limitations upon what was possible still left a large range of anxiety as to what was probable, and might become actual. One thing was too essential to be left uncertain, and the founders of this nation determined that there never should be a moment when the several communities of the different colonies should lose the character of component parts of one nation. By their plan- tation and growth up to the day of the Declaration of Indepen- dence they were subjects of one sovereignty, bound together in one political connection, parts of one country, under one consti- tution, with one destiny. Accordingly the Declaration, by its very terms, made the act of separation a dissolving by " one peo- ple " of "the political bands that have connected them with another," and the proclamation of the right and of the fact of independent nationality was, " that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States," 38 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE It was thus that, at one breath, " independence and union " were declared and established. The confirmation of the first by war, and of the second by civil wisdom was but the execu- tion of the single design which it is the glory of this great in- strument of our National existence to have framed and an- nounced. The recognition of our independence, first by France and then by Great Britain, the closer union by the Articles of Confederation, and the final unity by the Federal Constitution were all but muniments of title of that " liberty and union, one and inseparable," which were proclaimed at this place and on this day 100 years ago, which have been our possession from that moment hitherto, and which we surely avow shall be our possession forever. Seven years of revolutionary war, and twelve years of con- summate civil prudence brought us, in turn, to the conclusive peace of 1783, and to the perfected Constitution of 178". Few chapters of the world's history covering such brief periods, are crowded with so many illustrious names, or made up of events of so deep and permanent interest to mankind. I cannot stay to recall to your attention these characters, or these incidents, or to renew the gratitude and applause with which we never cease to contemplate them. It is only their relation to the De- claration of Independence itself, that I need to insist upon, and to the new State which it brought into existence. In this view these progressive processes were but the articulation of the members of the State, and the adjustment of its circulation to the new centres of its vital power. These processes were all implied and included in this political creationjland were as ne- cessary and as certain, if it were not to languish and to die, as in any natural creature. Within the hundred years whose flight in our national histo- ry we mark to-day, we have had occasion to corroborate by war both the independence and the unity of the nation. In our war against England for neutrality, we asserted and we establish- ed the absolute right to be free of European entanglements in time of war as well as in time of peace, and so completed our independence of Europe. And by the war of the Constitution — a war within the nation — the bonds of our unity were tried ORATION — WILLIAM M. EVAETS. 39 and tested, as in a fiery furnace, and proved to be dependent upon no shifting vicissitudes of acquiescence, no partial dissents or discontents, but, so far as is predicable of human fortunes, irrevocable, indestructible, perpetual. Casibus hcec nullis, nulla delebilis osvo IV. We may be quite sure that the high resolve to stake the fu- Our N»w Political ture of a great people upon a system of society System. anc i f polity that should dispense with the dog- mas, the experience, the traditions, the habits, and the senti- ments upon which the firm and durable fabric of the British Constitution had been built up, was not taken without a solici- tous and competent survey of the history, the condition, the temper, and the moral and intellectual traits of the people for whom the decisive step was taken. It may, indeed, be suggested that the main body of the ele- ments, and a large share of the arrangements, of the new government were expected to be upon the model of the. British system, and that the substantials of civil and religious liberty and the institutions for their maintenance and defense were already the possession of the people of England and the birth- right of the colonists. But this consideration does not much disparage the responsibility assumed in discarding the correla- tive parts of the British Constitution. I mean the Established Church and Throne ; the permanent power of a hereditary peerage ; the confinement of popular representation to the wealthy and educated classes ; and the ideas of all participation by the people in their own government coming by gracious con- cession from the royal prerogative and not by inherent right in themselves. Indeed, the counter consideration, so far as the question was to be solved by experience, would be a ready one. The foundation, and the walls, and the roof of this firm and noble edifice, it would be said, are all fitly framed together in the substantial institutions you propose to omit from your plan and model. The convenience, and safety, and freedom, the pride and happiness which the inmates of this temple and fortress enjoy, as the rights and liberties of Englishmen, are only kept in place and 40 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. play because of the firm structure of these aneient strongholds of religion and law, which you now desert and refuse to build anew. Our fathers had formed their opinions upon wiser and deeper views of man and Providence than these, and they had the cou- rage of their opinions. Tracing the progress of mankind in the ascending path of civ- ilization, enlightenment, and moral and intellectual culture, they found that the Divine ordinance of government, in every stage of the ascent, was adjustable on principles of common rea- son to the actual condition of a people, and always had for its objects, in the benevolent councils of the Divine wisdom, the happiness, the expansion, the security, the elevation of society, and the redemption of man. They sought in vain for any title of authority of man over man, except of superior capacity and high- er morality. They found the origin of castes and ranks, and principalities and powers, temporal or spiritual, in this concep- tion. They recognized the people as the structure, the temple, the fortress, which the great Artificer all the while cared for and built up. As through the long march of time this work ad- vanced, the forms and fashions of government seemed to them to be but the scaffolding and apparatus by which the develop- ment of a people's greatness was shaped and sustained. Satis- fied that the people whose institutions were now to be projected had reached all that measure of strength and fitness of prepara- tion for self-government which old institutions could give, they fearlessly seized the happy opportunity to clothe the people with the majestic attributes of their own sovereignty, and consecrate them to the administration of their own priesthood. The repudiation by England of the spiritual power of Eome at the time of the Keformation was by every estimate a stupendous innovation in the rooted allegiance of the people, a profound dis- turbance of all adjustments of authority. But Henry VILL, when he displaced the dominion of the Pope, proclaimed himself the head of the Church. The overthrow of the ancient monarchy of France by the fierce triumph of an enraged people was a catastro- phe that shook the arrangements of society from center to circum- ference. Napoleon, when he pushed aside the royal line of St.Louis, announced, "I am the people crowned," and setup a plebianEm- ORATION WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 41 peror as the impersonation ami depositary in him and bis line forever of the people's sovereignty. The founders of our Common- wealth conceived that the people of these colonies needed no interception of the supreme control of their own affairs, no con- ciliations of mere names and images of power from which the pith and vigor of authority had departed. They, therefore, did not hesitate to throw down the partitions of power and right and break up the distributive shares in authority of ranks and orders of men which indeed had ruled and advanced the development of society in civil and religious liberty, but might well be neglected when the protected growth was assured and all tutelary super- vision for this reason henceforth could only be obstructive and incongruous. A glance at the fate of the English essay at a commonwealth, Eugiiah and Freneh which preceded, and to the French experiment Republic* a t a republic, which followed our own institution " of a new State of a new species," will show the marvelous wis- dom of our ancestors, which struck the hue between too little and too much ; which walked by faith, indeed, for things invisible, but yet by sight for things visible ; which dared to appropriate everything to the people which had belonged to Caesar, but to assume for mortals nothing that belonged to God. No doubt; it was a deliberation of prodigious difficulty, and a decision of infinite moment, which should settle the new institu- tions of England after the execution of the King, and determine whether they should be popular or monarchial. The problem was too vast for Cromwell and the great men who stood about him, and, halting between the only possible opinions they simply robbed the throne of stability, without giving to the peo- ple the choice of their rulers. Had Cromwell assumed the state and style of King, and assigned the Constitutional limits of pre- rogative, the statesmen of England would have anticipated the establishment of 1688, and suved the disgraces of the intervening record. If, on the other hind, the ever-recurring consent of the people in vesting the Chief Magistracy had been accepted for the Constitution of the State, the revolution would have been intelli- 42 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. gible, ami might Lave proved permanent. But what a " Lord Pro lector " was nobody knew, and what he might grow to be everybody wondered and feared. The aristocracy could endure no dignity above them less than a king's. The people knew the measure and the title of the chartered liberties which had been wrested or yielded from the King's prerogative ; but what the division between them and a Lord Protector would be no one could forecast. A brief fluttering between the firmament above and the firm earth beneath, with no poise with either, and the discordant scheme was rolled away as a scroll. A hundred years afterward Montesquieu derided "this impotent effort of the Eng- lish to establish a democracy,'' and divined the true cause of its fail- ure. The supreme place, no longer sacred by the divinity that doth hedge about a king, irritated the ambitious to which it was inaccessible, except by faction and violence. " The Government was incessantly changed, and the astonished people sought for democracy and found it nowhere. After much violence and many shocks and blows, they were fain to fall back upon the same government they had overthrown." The English experiment to make a commonwealth without sinking its foundations into the firm bed of popular sovereignty, necessarily failed. Its example and its lesson, unquestionably, were of the greatest service in sobering the spirit of English reform in government, to the solid establishment of constitu- tional monarchy, on the expulsion of the Stuarts, and in giving courage to the statesmen of the American Revolution to push on to the solid establishment of republican government, with the consent of the people as its every-day working force. But if the English experiment stumbled in its logic by not going far enough, the French philosophers came to greater dis- aster by overpassing the lines which mark the limits of human authority and human liberty, when they undertook to redress the disordered balance between people and rulers, and renovate the Government of France. To the wrath of the people against kings and priests they gave free course, not only to the over- throw of the establishment of the Church and State, but to the destruction of religion and society. They deified man, and thought to raise a tower of man's building, as of old on the plain ORATION — WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 43 of Shinar, which should overtop the battlements of heaven, and to frame a constitution of human affairs that should displace the providence of God. A confusion of tongues put an end to this ambition. And now out of all its evil have come the salutary checks and discipline in freedom, which have brought passionate and fervid France to the scheme and frame of a sober and firm republic like our own, and, we may hope, as durable. VI. How much, then, hung upon the decision of the great day we Our Debt to the celebrate, and upon the wisdom and the will of Men of i77c. ^ e men wno fixed the immediate, and if so, the present fortunes of this people. If the body, the spirit, the tex- ture of our political life had not been collectively declared on this day, who can be bold enough to say when and how inde- pendence, liberty, union would have been combined, confirmed assured to this people ? Behold, now, the greatness of our debt to this ancestry, and the fountain, as from a rock smitten in the wilderness, from which the stream of this nation's growth and power takes its source. For it is not alone iu the memory of their wisdom and virtues that the founders of a State transmit and perpetuate their influences in its lasting fortunes, and shape the character and purposes of its future rulers. " In the birth of societies," says Montesquieu, " it is the chiefs of- a State that make its institutions ; and afterward it is these institutions that form the chiefs of the State." And what was this people and what their traits and training that could justify this congress of their great men in promul- gating the profound views of government and human nature which the Declaration embodies and expecting their accept- ance as " self-evident ? " How had their lives been disciplined and how their spirits prepared that the new-launched ship, freighted with all their fortunes, could be trusted to their guid- ance with no other chart or compass than these abstract truths ? What warrant was there for the confidence that upon these plain precepts 'of equality of right, community of interest, reciprocity of duty, a polity could be framed which might safely discard Egyptian mystery, and Hebrew reverence, and Grecian subtlety, 44 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. and ltoman strength — dispense, even, with English traditions of " Primogenity and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, lanrele. To these questions the answer was ready and sufficient. The delegates to this immortal assembly, speaking for the whole country and for the respective colonies, their constituents, might well say : " What we are, such are this people. We are not here as vol- unteers, but as their representatives. We have been designated by no previous official station, taken from no one employment or condition of life, chosen from the people at large because they cannot assemble in person, and selected because they know our sentiments, and we theirs, on the momentous question which our deliberations are to decide. They know that the result of all hangs on the intelligence, the courage, the constancy, the spirit of the people themselves. If these have risen to a height, and grown to a strength and unanimity that our judgment measures as adequate to the struggle for independence and the whole sum of their liberties, they will accept that issue and follow that lead. They have taken up anna to maintain their rights, and will not lay them down till those rights are assured. What the nature and sanctions of this security are to be they understand must be determined by united counsels and concerted action. These they have deputed us to settle and proclaim, and this we have done to-day. What we have declared the people will avow and confirm- Henceforth it is to this people a Avar for the defense of their united independence against its overthrow by foreign arms. Of that war there can be but one issue. And for the rest, as to the Constitution of the new State, its species is disclosed by its ex- istence. The condition of the people is equal, they have the habits of freemen and possess the institutions of liberty. When the- political connection with the parent State is dissolved they will be self-governing and self-governed of necessity. As all governments in this world, good and bad, liberal or despotic, are of men, by men, and for men, this new State, having no castes or rank, or degrees discriminating among men in its population, becomes at once a government of the people, by the people, and ORATION — WILLIAM M. EVAETS. 45 for the people. So it must remain, unless foreign conquest or domestic usurpation shall change it. Whether it shall be a just, wise, or prosperous government, it must be a popular govern- ment, and correspond with the wisdom, justice, and fortunes of the people." VIL And so this people, of various roots and kindred of the Old Attractions of World — settled and transfused in their cisatlantic Self-government, home into harmonious fellowship in the sentiments, the interests, the habits, the affections which develop and sustain a love of country — were committed to the common fortunes which should attend an absolute trust in the primary relations between man and his fellows and between man and his Maker. This Northern Continent of America had been opened and pre- pared for the transplantation of the full-grown manhood of the highest civilization of the Old World to a place where it could be free from mixture or collision with competing or hostile ele- ments, and separated from the weakness and the burdens which it would leave behind. The impulses and attractions which moved the emigration and directed it hither, various in form, yet had so much a common character as to merit the description of being public, elevated, moral, or religious. They included the desire of new and better opportunities for institutions con- sonant with the dignity of human nature and with the immortal and infinite relations of the race. In the language of the times the search for civil and religious liberty animated the Pilgrims, the Puritans, and the Churchmen; the Presbyterians, the Catho- lics, and the Quakers; the Huguenots, the Dutch, and the Walloons; the Waldenses, the Grermans, and the Swedes, in their several migrations which made up the colonial population. Their experience and fortunes here had done nothing to reduce, everything to confirm, the views and traits which brought them hither. To sever all political relations, then, with Europe, seemed to these people but the realization of the purposes which had led them across the ocean — but the one thing needful to complete this continent for their home, and to give the absolute assurance of that higher life which they wished to lead. The 46 OtiR NATIONAL JUBILEE. preparation of the past and the enthusiasms of the future conspired to favor the project of self-government and invest it with a moral grandeur which furnished the best omens and tho best guarantees for its prosperity. Instead of a capricious and giddy exaltation of spirit, as at new-gained liberty, a sober and solemn sense of the larger trust and duty took possession of their souls ; as if the Great Master had found them faithful over a few things, and had now made them rulers over many. These feelings, common to the whole population, were not of sudden origin and were not romantic, nor had they any tendency to evaporate in noisy boasts or to run wild in air-drawn projects, The difference between equality and privilege, betweeen civil rights and capricious favors, between freedom of conscience and persecution for conscience' sake, were not matters of moot debate or abstract conviction with our countrymen. The story of these battles of our race was the warm and living memory of their forefathers' share in them, for which, " to avoid insufferable grievances at home, they had been enforced by heaps to leave their native countries." They proposed to settle forever the question whether such grievances should possibly befall them or their posterity. They knew no plan so simple, so comprehensive, or so sure to this end as to solve all the minor difficulties in the government of society by a radical basis for its source, a common field for its operation, and an authentic and deliberate method for consulting and enforcing the will of the people as the sole authority of tho State. By this wisdom they at least would shift, within the sphere of government, the continuous warfare of human nature, on the field of good and evil, right and wrong, "Between whoso endless jar justice resides," from conflicts of the strength of the many against the craft of the few. They would gain the advantage of supplyiug as the reason of the State, the reason of the people, and deckle by the. moral and intellectual influences of instruction and pursuasion, the issue of who should make and who administer the laws. This involved no pretensions of the perfection of human nature, nor did it assume that at other times, or under other circum- ORATION — WILLIAM M. EVA.RTS. 4? stances they would themselves have been capable of self-gov- ernment ; or, that other people then were, or ever would be so capable. Their knowledge of mankind showed them that there would be faults and crimes as long as there were men. Their faith taught them that this corruptible would put on incorrup- tion only when this mortal should put on immortality. Never- theless they believed in man and trusted in God, and on these imperishable supports they thought they might rest civil government for a people who had these living conceptions wrought into their own characters and lives. The past and the present are the only means by which man foresees or shapes the future. Upon the evidence of the past the contemplation of the present of this people, our statesmen were willing to commence a system which must continually draw for its sustenance and growth upon the virtue and vigor of the people. From this virtue and this vigor it can alone be nourished ; it must decline in their decline and rot in their decay. They traced this vigor and virtue to inexhaustible springs. And, as the unspent heat of a lava soil, quickened by the returning summers through the vintage of a thousand years, will still glow in the grape and sparkle in the wine, so will the exuberant forces of a race supply an unstinted vigor to mark the virtues of immense populations and to the remotest generations. To the frivolous philosophy of human life which makes all the world a puppet show, and history a book of anecdotes, the moral warfare which fills up the life of man and the record of his race seems as unreal and as aimless as the conflicts of the glittering hosts upon an airy field, whose display lights up the fleeting splendors of a northern night. But free government for a great people never comes from or gets aid from such philo- sophers. To a true spiritual discernment there are few things more real, few things more substantial, few things more likely to endure in this world than human thoughts, human passions, human interests, thus molten into the frame and model of our State. " morem prceclaram, disciplinamque, quam a majoribus accepimus, si quidem teneremus ! " I have made no account, as unsuitable to the occasion, of the iS OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. distribution of the national power between the General and the State governments, or of the special arrangements of executive authority, of legislatures, courts, and magistracies, whether of the General or of the State establishments. Collectively they form the body and the frame of a complete government for a great, opulent, and powerful people, occupying vast regions, and em- bracing in their possessions a wide range of diversity of climate, of soil, and of all the circumstantial influences of external nature. I have pointed your attention to the principle and the spirit of the government for which all this frame and body exists, to which they are subservient, and to whose mastery they must con- form. The life of the natural body is the blood, and the circula- tion of the moral and intellectual forces and impulses of the body- politic, shapes and moulds the national life. I have touched, therefore, upon the traits that determined this national life, as to be of, from, and for the peopte, and not of, from, or for any rank, grade, part, or section of them. In these traits are found the " ordinances, constitutions, and customs " by a wise choice of which the founders of States may, Lord Bacon says, " sow great- ness to their posterity and succession.'' And now, after a century of growth, of trial, of experience, of observation, and of demonstration, we are met, on the spot and on the date of the great Declaration to compare our age with that of our fathers, our structure with their foundation, our in- tervening history and present condition with their faith and prophecy. That " respect to the opinion of mankind," in atten- tion to which our statesmen framed the Declaration of Independ- ence, we, too, acknowledge as a sentiment most fit to influence us in our commemorative gratulations to-day. vni. To this opinion of mankind, then, how shall we answer the ques- the centnry. tioning of this day ? How have the vigor and success of the century's warfare comported with the sounding phrase of the great manifesto ? Has the new nation been able to hold its ter- litory on the eastern rim of the continent, or has covetous Europe driven in its boundaries, or internal dissensions dismembered its integrity ? Have its numbers kept pace with natural increase> ORATION — WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 49 or have the mother countries received back to the shelter of firmer institutions the repentant tide of emigration? or have the woes of unstable society distressed arid reduced the shrunken population ? Has the free suffrage, as a quicksand, loosened the foundations of power and undermined the pillars of the State ? Has the free press, with illimitable sweep, blown down the props and buttresses of order and authority in Government, driven be- fore its wind the barriers which fence in society, and unroofed the homes which once were castles against the intrusion of a King? Has freedom in religion ended in freedom from religion, and independence by law run into independence of law ? Have free schools, by too much learning, made the people mad? Have manners declined, letters languished, art faded, wealth decayed, public spirit withered? Have other nations shunned the evil exam- ple, and held aloof from its infection ? Or have reflection and hard fortune dispelled the illusions under which this people " burned incense to vanity, and stumbled in their ways from the ancient paths ?" Have they, fleeing from the double destruction which attends folly and arrogance, restored the throne, rebuilt the al- tar, relaid the foundations of society, and again taken shelter in the old protections against the perils, shocks, and changes in human affairs, which " Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of States Quite from their fixture V Who can recount in an hour what has been done in a century, on so wide a field, and in all its multitudinous aspects ? Yet I may not avoid insisting upon some decisive lineaments of the material, social, and political development of our country which the record of the hundred years displays, and thus present to the " opinion of mankind," for its generous judgment, our nation as it is to-day — our land, our people, and our laws. And, first, we notice the wide territory to which we have steadily pushed on our limits. Lines of climate mark our boundaries north and south, and two oceans east and west. The space between, speak- ing by and large, covers the whole temperate zone of the contin- ent, and in area measures near tenfold the possessions of the thir- teen colonies ; the natural features, the climate, the productions, 50 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. the influences of the outward world, are all implied in the im- mensity of this domain, for they embrace all that the goodness and the power of God have planned for so large a share of the habitable globe. The steps of the successive acquisitions, the im- pulses which assisted, and the motives which retarded the ex- pansion of our territory ; the play of the competing elements in our civilization and their incessant struggle each to outrun the other ; the irrepressible conflict thus nursed in the bosom of the State, the lesson in humility and patience, " in charity for all and malice toward none,''' which the study of the manifest designs of Providence so plainly teach us — these may well detain us for a moment's illustration. IX. And this calls attention to that ingredient in the population Emancipation, of this country which came, not from the culmin- ated pride of Europe, but from the abject despondency of Afri- ca. A race discriminated from all the converging streams of immigration which I have named by ineffaceable distinctions of nature ; which was brought hither by a forced migration and into slavery, while all others came by choice and for greater liberty ; a race unrepresented in the Congress which issued the Declaration of Independence, but now, in the rjersons of 4,000,- 000 of our countrymen raised, by the power of the great truths then declared as it were from the dead, and rejoicing in one country and the same constituted liberties with ourselves. In August, 1620, a Dutch slave-ship landed her freight in Virginia, completing her voyage soon after that of the May- flower commenced. Both shij>s were on the ocean at the same time, both sought our shores, and planted their seeds of liberty and slavery to grow together on this chosen field until the har- vest. Until the seperation from England the several colonies, attracted each their own emigration, and from the sparseness of the population, both in the Northern and Southern colonies, and the policy of England in introducing African slavery, wherever it might, in all of them, the institution of slavery did not raise a definite and firm line of division between the tides of population which set in upon New England and Virginia ORATION WILLIAM IT. EVA UTS. 51 from the Okl World, and from them later, as from new points of departure, were diffused over the continent. The material interests of slavery had not become very strong, and in its moral aspects no sharp division of sentiment had yet shown it- self. But when unity and independence of government were accepted by the colonies, we shall look in vain for any adequate barrier against the natural attraction of the softer climate and rich productions of the South, which could keep the Northern population in their harder climate and on their less grateful soil, except the repugnancy of the two systems of free and slave labor to commixture. Out of this grew the inpatient, and apparently premature, invasion of the Western wilds, push- ing constantly onward, in parallel lines, the outposts of the two rival interests. What greater enterprise did for the Northern people in stimulating this movement was more than supplied to the Southern by the pressing necessity for new lands, which the requirements of the system of slave cultivaton imposed. Un- der the operation of these causes the political divisions of the country built up a wall of partition running east and west, with the novel consequence of the " Border States " of the country being ranged, not on our foreign boundaries, but on this mid- dle line, drawn between the free and slave States. The succes- sive acquisitions of territory, by the Louisiana purchase, by the annexation of Texas, and by the Treaty with Mexico, were all in the interest of the Southern policy, and, as such, all suspect- ed or resisted by the rival interest in the North. On the other hand, all schemes or tendencies toward the enlargement of our territory on the north, were discouraged and defeated by the South. At length, with the immense influx of foieign immigra- tion, re-enforcing the flow of population, the streams of free labor shot across the continent. The end was reached. The bounds of our habitation were secured. The Pacific posses- sions became ours, and the discovered gold rapidly peopled them from the hives of free labor. The rival energies and am- bitions which had fed the thirst for territory had served their purpose, in completing and assuring the domain of the nation. The partition wall of slavery was thrown down ; the line of Bor- der States obliterated ; those who had battled for territory, as 62 OUR. NATIONAL JUBILEE. an extension and perpetuation of slavery, and those who fought against its enlargement, as a disparagement and a danger to liberty, were alike confounded. Those who feared undue and precipitate expansion of our possessions, as loosening the ties of union, and those who desired it, as a step toward dissolution, have suffered a common discom- fiture. The immense social and political forces which the existence of slavery in this country, and the invincible repug- nance to it of the vital principles of our state together generated have had their play upon the passions and the interests of this people, have formed the basis of parties, divided sects, agitated and invigorated the popular mind, inspired the eloquence, inflamed the zeal, informed the understandings, and fired the hearts of three generations. At last the dread debate escaped all bounds of reason, and the nation in arms solved, by the appeal of war, what was too hard for civil wisdom. With our territory unmutilated, our Constitution uncorrupted, a united people, in the last years of the century, crowns with new glory the immortal truths of the Declaration of Independence by the emancipation of a race. X. I find, then, in the method and the results of the century's Promise of National progress of the nation in this amplification of Longevity. its domain, sure promise of the duration of the body politic, whose growth to these vast proportions has, as yet, but laid out the ground plan of the structure. For I find the vital forces of the free society and the people's govern- ment, here founded, have by their own vigor made this a natu- ral growth. Strength and symmetry have knit together the great frame as its bulk increased, and the spirit of the nation animates the whole : "totamque, infusa per artns, Mens agitat molem, et iiiagno so, corpore miscet." We turn now from the survey of this vast territory, which the closing century has consolidated and confirmed as the ample home for a nation, to exhibit the greatness in numbers, the spirit, the character, the port and mien of the peoj)le that dwell in this secure habitation. That in these years, our population ORATION WILLIAM M. EVAETS. 53 has steadily advanced, till it. counts 40,000,000 instead of 3,000,000, bears witness, not to be disparaged or gainsaid, to tlie general congruity of our social and civil institutions with the happiness and prosperity of man. But if we consider fur- ther the variety and magnitude of foreign elements to whieh we have been hospitable, and their ready fusion with the earlier stocks, we have new evidence of strength and vivid force in our population, whieh we may not refuse to admire. The dispo- sition and capacity thus shown give warrant of a powerful society. " All nations," says Lord Bacon, " that are liberal of naturalization are lit for empire." Wealth in its mass, and still more in its tenure and diffusion, is a measure of the condition of a people which touches both its energy and morality. Wealth has no source but labor. " Life has given nothing valuable to man without great labor." This is as true now as when Horace wrote it. The prodigious growth of wealth in this country is not only, therefore, a signal mark of prosperity, but proves industry, persistency, thrift as the habits of the people. Accumulation of wealth, too, requires and imports security, as well as unfettered activity ; and thus it is a fair criterion of sobriety and justice in a people, certainly, when the laws and their execution rest wholly in their hands. A careless observation of the crimes and frauds which attack prosperity, in the actual condition of our society, and the imper- fection of our means for their prevention and redress, leads sometimes to an unfavorable comparison between the present and the past, in this country, as respects the probity of the peo- ple. No doubt covetousness has not ceased in the world, and thieves still break through and steal. But the better test upon this point is the vast profusion of our wealth and (he infinite trust shown by the manner in which it is invested. It is not too much to say that in our times, and conspicuously in our country, a large share of every man's property is in other men's keeping and management, unwatched and bejond personal con- trol. This confidence of man in man is ever increasing, meas- ured by our practical conduct, and refutes these disparagements of the general morality. Knowledge, intellectual activity, the mastery of nature, the 54 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. discipline of life — all that makes up the education of a people — are developed and diffused through the masses of our popula- tion, in so ample and generous a distribution as to make this the conspicuous trait in our national character, as the faithful provision and extension of the means and opportunities of this education, are the cherished institutions of the country. Learn- ing, literature, science, art, are cultivated, in their widest range and highest reach, by a larger and larger number of our peo- ple, not, to their praise be it said, as a personal distinction or a selfish possession, but, mainly, as a generous leaven, to quicken and expand the healthful fermentation of the general mind, and lift the level of popular instruction. So far from breeding a distempered spirit in the people, this becomes the main p>rop of authority, the great instinct of obedience. " It is by education," says Aristotle, " I have learned to do by choice what other men do by constraint of fear." XL The " breed and disposition " of a people, in regard of courage, Spirit of our public spirit, and patriotism, are, however, the test People. G f the working of their institution, which the world most values, and upon which the public safety most depends, ft has been made a reproach of democratic arrangements of so- ciety and government that the sentiment of honor, and of pride in public duty, decayed in them. It has been professed that the fluctuating currents and the trivial perturbations of their public life discouraged strenuous endeavor and lasting devotion in the public service. It has been charged that, as a consequence, the distinct service of the State suffered, office and magistracy were belittled, social sympathies cooled, love of country drooped, and selfish affections absorbed the powers of the citizens, and eat into the heart of the commonwealth. The experience of our countiy rejects these speculations as misplaced and these fears as illusory. They belong to a condi- tion of society above which we have long since been lifted, and toward which the very scheme of our national life prohibits a decline. They are drawn from the examples of history, which lodged power formally in the people, but left them ignorant and ORATION WILLIAM M. EVAKTS. 55 abject, unfurnished with the means of exercising it in their own right and for their own benefit. In a democracy wielded by the arts, and to the ends of a patrician class, the less worthy members of that class, no doubt, throve by the disdain which noble char- acters must always feel for methods of deception and insincerity, and crowded them from the authentic service of the state. But, through the period whose years we count to-day, the greatest lesson of all is the preponderance of public over private, of so- cial over selfish, tendencies and purposes in the whole body of the people, and the persistent fidelity to the genius and spirit of popular institutions, of the educated classes, the liberal profess- ions, and the great men of the country. These qualities trans- fuse and blend the hues and virtues of the manifold rays of advanc- ed civilization into a sunlight of public spirit and fervid patriotism which warms and irradiates the life of the nation. Excess of publicity as the animating spirit and stimulus of society more probably than its lack will excite our solicitudes in the future. Even the public discontents take on this color, and the mind and heart of the whole people ache with anxieties and throb with griefs which have no meaner scope than the honor and the safety of the nation. Our estimate of the condition of this people at the close of a century — as bearing on the value and efficiency of the principles on which the Government was founded, in maintaining and securing the permanent well-being of a nation — would, in- deed be incomplete if we failed to measure the power and purity of the religious elements which pervade aiid elevate our society. One might as well expect our land to keep its climate, its fertil- ity, its salubrity, and its beauty were the globe loosened from the law which holds it in an orbit, where we feel the tempered ra- diance of the sun, as to count upon the preservation of the delights and glories of liberty for a people cast loose from religion, whereby man is bound in harmony with the moral government of the world. It is quite certain that the present day shows no such solemn absorption in the exalted themes of contemplative piety, as marked the prevalent thought of the people a hundred years ago ; nor so hopeful an enthusiasm for the speedy renovation 56 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. of the world, as burst upon us in the marvelous and wide sys- tem of vehement religious zeal, and practical good works, in the early part of the nineteenth century. But these fires are loss splendid, only because they are more potent, and diffuse their heat in well-formed habits and manifold agencies of bene- ficent activity. They traverse and permeate society in every direction. They travel with the outposts of civilization and outrun the caucus, the convention, and the suffrage. The Church, throughout this land, upheld by no political es- tablishment, rests all the firmer on the rock on which its found- er built it. The great mass of our countrymen to-day find in the Bible — the Bible in their worship, the Bible in then- schools, the Bible in their households — the sufficient lessons of the fear of God and the love of man, which make them obe- dient servants to the free constitution of their country, in all civil duties, and ready with their hves to sustain it on the fields of war. And now at the end of a hundred years the Christian faith collects its worshippers throughout our land, as at the be- ginning. What half a century ago was hopefully prophesied for our far future, goes on to its fulfillment : " As the sun rises on a Sabbath morning and travels westward from New- foundland to the Oregon, he will behold the countless millions assembling, as if by a common impulse, in the temples with which every valley, mountain, and plain will be adorned. The morning psalm and the evening anthem will commence with the multitudes on the Atlantic Coast, be sustained by the loud chorus of ten thousand times ten thousand in the Valley of the Mississippi, and be prolonged by the thousands of thousands on the shores of the Pacific." XII. What remains but to search the spirit of the laws of the land Strength of -our as framed by and modeled to the popular govern- System. ment to which our fortunes were committed by the Declaration of Independence ? I do not mean to examine the particular legislation, State or General, by which the af- fairs of the people have been managed, sometimes wisely and well, at others feebly and ill, nor even the fundamental arrange- ORATION WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 57 ment of jjolitical authority, or tbe critical treatment of great junctures iu our policy aud history. The hour and the occasion concur to preclude so intimate an inquiry. The chief concern in this regard, to us and to the rest of the world, is, whether the proud trust, the profound radicalism, the wide benevolence which spoke in the " Declaration " and were infused into the " Constitution " at the first, have been in good faith adhered to by the people, and whether now these principles supply the living forces which sustain and direct Government and society. He who doubts needs but to look around to find all things full of the original spirit, and testifying to its wisdom and strength. We have taken no steps backward, nor have we needed to seek other paths in our progress than those in which our feet were planted at the beginning. Weighty and manifold have been our obligations to the great nations of the earth, to their schol- ars, their philosophers, their men of genius and of science, to tbeir skill, their taste, their invention, to their wealth, their arts, their industry. But in the institutions and methods of gov- ernment; in civil prudence, courage, or policy; in statesman- ship, in the art of " making of a small town a great city ;" in the adjustment of authority to liberty ; in the concurrence of reason and strength in peace, of force and obedience in war : Ave have found nothing to recall us from the course of our fathers, noth- ing to add to our safety or to aid our progress in it. So far from this, all modifications of European politics accept the popu- lar principles of our system, and tend to our model. The move- ments towards equality of representation, enlargement of the suffrage, and public education in England ; the restoration of unity iu Italy ; the confederation of Germany under the lead of Prussia ; the actual Republic in France ; the unsteady throne of Spain ; the new hberties of Hungary ; the constant gain to the people's share in government throughout Europe; all tend one way, the way pointed out in the Declaration of our Inde- pendence. The care and zeal with which our people cherish and invigo- rate the primary supports and defenses of their own sovereign- ty, have all the unswerving force and confidence of instincts. 58 OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. The community and publicity of education, at the charge and as an institution of the State, is firmly imbedded in the wants and the desires of the people. Common schools are rapidly extending through the only part of the country which had been shut against them, and follow close upon the footsteps of its new liberty to enlighten the enfranchised race. Freedom of conscience easily stamps out the first sjDarkles of persecution, and snaps as green withes the first bonds of spiritual domina- tion. The sacred oracles of their religion the people wisely hold in their own keeping as the keys of religious liberty, and refuse to be beguiled by the voice of the wisest charmer into loosing their grasp. Freedom from military power and the maintenance of that arm of the Government in the people ; a trust in their own ade- quacy as soldiers, when their duty as citizens should need to take on that form of service to the State ; these have gained new force by the experience of foreign and civil war, and a standing army is a remoter possibility for this nation, in its present or prospective greatness, than in the days of its small beginnings. But in the freedom of the press, and the universality of the suffrage, as maintained and exercised to-day throughout the length and breath of the land, we find the most conspicuous and decisive evidence of the unspent force of the institutions of liberty and the jealous guard of its principal defenses. These indeed are the great agencies and engines of the people's sover- eignty. They hold the same relations to the vast democracy of modern society that the persuasions of the orators and the per- sonal voices of the assembly did in the narrow confines of the Grecian States. The laws, the customs, the impulses, and senti- ments of the people have given wider and wider range and license to the agitations of the press, multiplied and more fre- quent occasions for the exercise of the suffrage, larger and larger communication of its franchise. The progress of a hundred years finds these prodigious activities in the fullest play — inces- sant and allpowerful — indispensable in the habits of the people, and impregnable in their affections. Their public service, and their subordination to the public safety, stand in their play upon one another and in their freedom thus maintained. Neither OKATION — WILLIAM M. EVART8. 50 could long exist in true vigor in our system without the other. Without the watchful, omnipresent and indomitable energy of the press, the suffrage would languish, would be subjugated by the corporate power of the legions of placemen which the adminis- tration of the affairs of a great nation imposes upon it, and fall a prey to that " vast patronage which," we are told, " distracted, corrupted, and finally subverted the Roman Republic." On the other hand, if the impressions of the press upon the opinions and passions of the people found no settled and ready mode of their working out, through the frequent and peaceful suffrage, the people would be driven, to satisfy their displeasure at govern- ment or their love of change, to the coarse methods of barricades and batteries. xni. - We cannot then hesitate to declare that the original princi- Our Country pies of equal society and popular government still To-day. inspire the laws, live in the habits of the people, and animate their purposes and their hopes. These principles have not lost their spring or elasticity. They have sufficed for all the methods of government in the past ; we feel no fear for their adequacy in the future. Released now from the tasks and burdens of the formative period, these principles and methods can be directed with undivided force to the everyday conduct of government, to the staple and steady virtues of adminis- tration. The feebleness of crowding the statute-books with unexecuted laws ; the danger of power outgrowing or evading responsibility ; the rashness and fickleness of temporary expe- dients ; the constant tendency by which parties decline into factions and end in conspiracies ; all these mischiefs beset all governments and are part of the life of each generation. To deal with these evils — the tasks and burdens of the immediate future — the nation needs no other resources than the principles and the examples which our past history supj>ly. These princi- ples, these examples of our fathers, are the strength and the safety of our State to-day: " Moribus antiquis, stat res Eomana, virisque." Unity liberty, power, prosperity — these are our possessions to-day. Our territory is safe against foreign dangers; its com- 60 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. pleteness dissuades from further ambition to extend it, and its rounded symmetry discourages all attempts to dismember it. No division into greatly unequal parts would be tolerable to either. No imaginable union of interests or passions, large enough to include one-half the country, but must embrace much more. The madness of partition into numerous and fee- ble fragments could proceed only from the hopeless degradation of the people, and would form but an incident in general ruin- The spirit of the nation is at the highest — its triumph over the inborn, inbred perils of the Constitution has chased away all fears, justified all hopes, and with universal joy we greet this day. We have not proved unworthy of a great ancestry ; we have had the virtue to uphold what they so wisely, so firmly established. With these proud possessions of the past, with powers matured, with principles settled, with habits formed, the nation passes as it were from preparatory growth to respon- sible development of character, and the steady performance of duty. What labors await it, what trials shall attend it, what triumphs for human nature, what glory for itself, are prepared for this people in the coming century, we may not assume to foretell. " One generation passeth away, and another genera- tion cometh, but the earth abideth forever," and we reverently hope that these our constituted liberties shall be maintained to the unending line of our posterity, and so long as the earth itself shall endure. In the great procession of nations, in the great march of humanity, we hold our place. Peace is our duty, peace is our policy. In its arts, its labors, and its victories, then, we find scope for all our energies, rewards for all our ambitions, renown enough for all our love and fame. In the august presence of so many nations, which, by their representatives, have done us the honor to be witnesses of our commemorative joy and gratula- tion, and in sight of the collective evidences of the greatness of their own civilization with which they grace our celebration, we may well confess how much we fall short, how much we have to make up, in the emulative competitions of the times. Yet, even in this presence, and with a just deference to the age, the power, the greatness of the other nations of the earth, we do not fear ORATION WILLIAM M. EVARTfi. 61 to o,ppeal to the opinion of mankind whether, as we point to our land, our people, and our laws, the contemplation should not inspire us with a lover's enthusiasm for our country. Time makes no pauses in his march. Even while I speak the last hour of the receding is replaced by the first hour of the coming century, and reverence for the past gives way to the joys and hopes, the activities and the responsibilities of the fu- ture. A hundred years hence the piety of that generation will recall the ancestral glory which we celebrate to-day, and crown it wiih the plaudits of a vast population which no man can number. By the mere circumstance of this periodicity our gen- eration will be in the minds, in the hearts, on the lips of our countrymen at the next Centennial commemoration in com- parison with their own character and condition, and with the great founders of the nation. What shall they say of us? How shall they estimate the part we bear in the unbroken line of the nation's progress ? And so on, in the long reach of time, for- ever and forever, our place in the secular roll of the ages must always bring us into observation and criticism. Under this double trust, then, from the past and for the future, let us take heed to our ways, and while it is called to-day, resolve that the great heritage w r e have received shall be handed down through the long line of the advancing generations, the home of liberty, the abode of justice, the stronghold of faith among men, " which holds the moral elements of the world together," and of faith in God, which binds that world to His throne. THE GENIUS OF AMERICA. AN ADDRESS BY HON. FELIX R. BEUNOT, DELIVERED AT PITTSBURGH, PA., JULY 4tH, 1876. Fellow Citizens and Friends : Yesterday I stood in the Hal] of Independence, on the banks of the Delaware, and looked upon the immortal Declaration which an hundred years ago proclaimed the birth of the nation. To-day I join with you, on the banks of the Ohio, to celebrate with appropriate ceremonies the Centennial of the Nation's birth. Space and time in the progress of those hundred years seem well nigh obliterated between the ends of our good old Commonwealth ; so let space and time stand aside whilst we mingle the august memories of the past with the glories of the present, and cement the foundations of a still more imperishable and noble future. Were I a sculptor charged with the study of embodying in marble the idea of this occasion, I would represent the Geniuf/ of America — glancing backwards at monuments upon whoso foundations would be inscribed the principles of our forefathers, upon which the national institutions have been builded, and out of which the prosperity of the nation has grown — and with firm, advancing step, and right arm raised she should point onward and upward to a pyramid grander than those Egypt inscribed on every stone from foundation to apex with the same principles. An individual cannot abandon principles of truth, justice, and virtue which have guided him from youth to manhood, without danger to himself. Neither can a nation without danger, if not destruction. What are some of these principles which have made us to prosper, and without which we cannot live ? Ask the Pilgrim Fathers, and the reply comes from the articles of government they solemnly signed on the day before they landed from tho Mayflower : " In the name of God ! Amen. We whose nanus are underwritten * * * having undertaken for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith a voyage, * * * ADDRESS — FELIX B. BRUN0T. ftfl solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, combine ourselves into a body politic for our better ordering and jurisdiction ; and furthermore, in pursuance of the ends aforesaid, and by virtue hereof, to enact and found such just and equal laws, * * * unto which we promise all due sub- mission and obedience." Ask the colonies, and old Roger Williams replies, "that every man is permitted to worship God according to his own conscience." Ask the fathers of the Republic, and the im- mortal words of their declaration ring out the self-evident truths that by " Nature's God " and the endorsement of " their Creator " all men have certain inahenable rights, among which are "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The religious conscience in the New World "was born free — civil liberty was bought with revolutionary blood. Out of the sturdy birth- freedom of religious liberty grew the consciousness of the right to civil liberty, and they are inseparable as sun and sunlight. Take away the sun and the beauties of earth are lost in dark- ness — destroy religious liberty and civil liberty dies. As civil liberty established by the founders of the Republic did not mean freedom from law, so neither did religious liberty mean freedom from religion. the Continental and Federal Congress opened daily with prayer to Almighty God, maintained the sanctity of the Christian Sabbath and appointed days of national feasts or thanksgiving. The first official act of the first Pres- ident was the public acknowledgement of the religious obliga- tion of the nation in thanks to Almighty God, and the first thing Congress did after the inauguration was to attend in a body religious service in St. Paul's Church for the same purpose. " While just Government," wrote Washington in 1789, " pro- tects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to gov- ernment its surest support," and said that incomparable states- man in his farewell address : " Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined edu- cation on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." John Adams, his successor in the Presidency, was still more 01 UUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. emphatic in expressing these foundation facts in the nation's life, and the records of the times are prolific in proof that the statesman expressed the universal sentiment of the people. When the Congress of 1787 — the same Congress which or- dered the convention which formed our Federal Constitution — made a law for the government of the territory north and west of the Ohio, and the States to be created out of it, that law de- fined the connection between religion and the State in words of priceless value : "Religion, morality and knowledge being ne- cessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and education shall forever be encouraged." There were no modern legislators who had forgotten or never learned the grand truths of the Declaration which will be read in our hearing to-day. Some of them were the signers of that immortal title deed of liberty to mankind, and every noble heart of them throbbed with the very blood which had been periled in its defence. They knew what the Prussians have long since discovered and reduced to a State Maxim : "Whatever you would have appear in the life of a nation, you must put into your schools." [Applause.] They had imbided the principles of civil and religious liberty from Bible Christianity ; they believed religion to be necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, it was taught in the schools of their childhood and they handed it down to their children's children. Under this teaching the thirteen original States have been well nigh multiplied by three and the three million of people of a hundred years ago multi- plied by thirteen ! What want we with new doctrines and de- vices of government in this our Centennial year ? As in the further proceedings of the day we recall principles and patri- otic spirit of the founders of the Republic, and recount their deeds of honor and sacrifice to win and perpetuate the civil and religious liberty we enjoy, let their old rallying cry of God and Liberty be ours, my fellow-citizens, and " with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, let us mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honors " to hand down to the world of 1976 the institutions of Govern, ment, religious, educational and political as we have received them from the patriot fathers of 1776. [Applause.] ECHOES FEOM LEXINGTON AND BUNKER HILL. AN ORATION BY HON. JOHN" M. KIRKPATRICK, DELIVERED AT PITTSBURGH, PA., JULY 4TH, 187G. My Fellow Countrymen : All hail this day ! All hail these eladsome summer sun-lit hours, God blessed and flower crowned, in which we hold our nation's jubilee ! All hail the past, the future and the present, hail! which brings to us a century of life completed with this day ! This is our high Centennial feast, and to it all the world is bidden and hath come ; and high o'er all, our beauteous starry banner waves ! The great clock of time whose mighty pendulum, swinging in measured arC amidst the lapsing years, vibrates so ceaseless- ly and silently between the ages of the past and the eternities of the future, has even now just struck our centenary hour and marked upon its dial this consummate and full rounded period in our nation's life ! One hundred years ago this day a new nation was born into the world. One hundred years ago this day our forefathers dead and gone, with an instinct begotten of freedom, and an in- spiration only from on high, amidst the turbulence and throes of revolution, the fire and flame and smoke of battle, and the noise and shock of contending hosts, gave to the world their immor- tal declaration. One may not " Gild refined gold Or paint tho lilly," and so in their own grand thoughts and words let me re-tell you what they said this day one hundred years ago. They declared these truths to be self-evident. That aU men were created equal ; that they were endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these were life, lib- erty and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights governments were instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed ; that whenever any 66 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. form of government became destructive of these ends, it was the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, having its foundation on such principles, and or- ganizing its powers in such form as to them should seem mort likely to effect their safety and happiness. This is the very lan- guage of their declaration ; and to establish it, and in vindica- tion of themselves, and as a history of the long train of abuses and usurpations and repeated injuries to which they had been for a long time subjected, they submitted facts to a candid world. And then as the crowning act of their great declaration, as rep- resentatives of the United States of America in general Congress assembled, and apppaling to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectiude of their intentions, they did, in the name and by the authority of the good people of the then Colonies, solemnly pub- lish and declare : " That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent States ; that they are absolved from all alle- giance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved : and that as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which in- dependent States may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Pro- vidence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our for- tunes and our sacred honor." " From the fullness of his own mind," says Mr. Bancroft, " without consulting one single book, Jefferson drafted the res- olution." Can any words of mine or of any orator to-day add dignity to the thought, or lend grace or beauty of power to these trumpet-toned, soul-stirring utterances of one hundred years ago ? And so, can anything more appropriate be done than to read and reread on this our holy, happy festal day, this great chart of our life, this sublime, this immortal declaration of the great men of a great time, long since entered into their eternal rest ? I trow not. How like a very bugle blast their voices, caught up in the echoes and the eddies of the lapsing years, ORATION — JOHN' M. K1RKPATRIOK. 67 conie sounding down to us through the century,kindling anew the love of country in every heart, and lighting again as in their own time the sacred fires of liberty in every valley and upon every mountain top throughout the length and breadth of this great land. " They never fail who die In a great cause ; the block may soak their gore ; Their heads may sodden in the sun ; their limbs Be struug to the city gates and castle walla. But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years Elapse, and others share as dark a doom, They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts Which overpower all others anil conduct The world at last to freedom." Thus, then, my countrymen, did these men of a heroic age speak, and so did they " proclaim liberty throughout all the land and to all the inhabitants thereof." Thus, upon these only sure foundations did they build that magnificent temple of lib- erty and of law, the American republic, whose aisles and porch- es we crowd and throng this day, and so up to the sunlight and the sky did they carry it — a creation perfect, complete in every part, as from a master hand, the admiration of the civilized world and " the joy of the whole earth." In order rightly and fully to appreciate the great magnitude of this undertaking, let us pause for a moment, my countrymen, to consider the circumstances and recognize the conditions by which these men were surrounded when this the grandest act of their lives and time, or of any people or of any time, was by them begun. I need not say to you that upon their part it was no holiday task, no unmeaning act, and no yain and idle ceremony. Not at all ; not at all. It was a task replete with toil and trouble, and sacrifice and sorrow. It was an act suggestive only of doubt, darkness, danger, death. It was a ceremony grand, im- pressive and imposing beyond all thought and beyond all de- scription, in which the highest and the holiest rights of the hu- man race were involved — the whole continent the stage — na- tions the actors — and the spectators the people of the civilized world ! Among the countless thousands who hve on the pages of his- 68 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. torj — the myriads who have crowded the decades and the cen- turies of the past — I know of no men greater than these ; and of all the scenes which have ever been enacted on the world's stage, I can recall none which in grandeur and sublimity, and far-reaching effect upon the human race, surpassed the Ameri- can Revolution of one hundred years ago. I know this will seem to many the language of exaggeration, but let us for a moment consider the facts. Of the grounds of the Revolution I need not speak. The Declaration just read puts them in such obvious phrases that no words of mine could add to their force, or give fresh significance to their meaning and expression. It is enough to say that they were clear and well taken, and fully justified, any consequences which might follow from their submission " to the judgment of a candid world." Let us, however, look for a moment at the combatents as they enter the arena, prepared and ready to begin this great struggle for human rights and the mastery of a continent. We were, as you know, but thirteen detached and feeble colonies, containing in all scarcely three millions of people, who then and thus threw down our gauge of battle to one of the most powerful nations on the face of the earth — a great nation whose keels vexed every sea, whose possessions were so vast that upon them the sun in his going never set, and whose " morning drum beat," and whose' evening gun were then as now, heard round and round the world. Strong only in the integrity of their great cause ; knowing well as we, that '' thrice is he armed, who hath his quarrel just.'' Putting their trust in the Lord of hosts, with a courage which was sublime, and a faith as firm and enduring as " the everlast- ing hills," they drew their swords in defense of right, and struck for God and native land. With a boldness having home only in the hearts of a people who dared be free, they entered this their most solemn protest against tyranny, and injustice, and oppression, and wrong, tak- ing whatever form, and coming whensoever it might, and gave all the world to know, that if need be it would be baptized with a baptism of blood, and again and again proclaimed out of the glistening muzzles of their shotted guns. ORATION — JOHN M. KIltKPATKICK. 69 Actuated by the loftiest impulse of duty, and inspired ouly by a love of country, and the right, which knew no limit, I need scarcely tell you that they were all of one heart and of one mind. To the leaders at least, the headsman's axe, and the hangman's rope, were both the awful possibilities of an unsuccessful future ; for remember this was a hundred years ago, when force dominat- ed the world, and George the Third was King. They had, there- fore, a full knowledge of all the consequences of their great act, and a most sincere and solemn appreciation of the position in which they then stood. " We must be unanimous ; there must be no pulling different ways ; we must hang together," said the polished and dignified Hancock, as the various members of the Congress came forward to sign the declaration. " "We must hang together." " Yes," said Franklin, " yes, for if we do not we shall certainly all hang separately." What a terrible grim joke it was to be sure ! And at such an hour ! But what a reality death proved itself to many in the subsequent battle-fields of the war in which the young nation covered herself with glory as with a garment, and stood fast even unto death in the shining valor of her sons ! But these men, my countrymen, had well counted the costs, and had reckoned the gain. They knew the high import of the work of that great day. The echoes from Lexington Green and Concord bridge still trembled and lingered on the summer air, and the new-made graves of the proto-martyrs of liberty were, almost we might say, even yet unkissed and unloved by the daisy, unguarded by the soft green sward of mother earth. The great uprising of the year before of course had not been forgotten, and the thunders of the guns from Bunker Hill were even then ringing in their ears, telling the story how brave Warren fell, and bidding them acquit themselves like men in all the duties of that eventful day. It mattered not, however, for as I have already said, these iron men of an iron age had counted well the cost, and already and fully comprehended the deep significance of it all. They knew of course it meant a separation final and complete from mother land and mother love ; with long years of devious and of doubtful war, from Long Island to Torktown where the banners of the people 70 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. floated at last in triumph and in victory over the royal ensign of King George, and the freedom of the colonies of North America became an assured and a most glorious fact. It meant the bloody stories of Trenton and Princeton, and Bennington and Brandywine, and Saratoga and Germantown, and Mon- mouth and Stony Point, and Savannah and Charleston, and Camden and King's Mountain, and the Cowpens and Eutaw, and wherever else upon the land, or upon the sea the sublime emergencies of the hour called love and loyalty to victory or to death. It meant famine and fire and sword. It meant the wicked treason of Arnold and the wild unholy ambition of Lee. It meant want and woe, the shivering, ill-clad forms and shoe- less feet, and bloodstained snow at Valley Forge. It meant doubt and despair, sorrow and death. All this it meant and more, but all of this they knew. But God be praised, and glory be to His great name, it meant other and better far. It meant that, in the " All Hail hereafter," out of this present gloom should come gladness, out of this present sorrow a great joy. It meant that, as without death there can be no resurrection, and without the grave there can be naught of immortality beyond, so, with death, there should came, and there would, a certain resurrection and a new life, and out of this almost seeming grave of hope there should spring, and there would, a great tree — a very " tree of life " — the Tree of Liberty whose far reaching branches should fill the w r orld, whose blossoms, like the blessing of God, would fall upon all lands, and upon all peoples, and whose leaves should in very deed be for the healing of all the nations upon the face of the earth ! It m; ant that out of the loins of this young nation — scarcely yet worthy of the name — there should come, and there would, in the years and century of the future, a great people, bold, defiant, aggressive, carrying with their flag everywhere the genius of free institutions and their laws ; covering a continent with their starry banner of empire, and blessing and beautify- ing it with an advanced, and let us hope, an ever-advancing civilization ! It meant a State without a King, and in the far away future — and God be praised that we have lived to see the ORATION — JOHN M. KIRKPATKICK. 71 day— a land without a slave ! It meant a refuge for the down- trodden of avery clime without regard to creed or color or con- dition It meant the perfection of all government — complete equality before the law, and so a people always and wholly free, calling no one master, save Him above, the Lord and Master of us alhj "Great God, we thank thee for this home. This bounteous birthland of the free; Where wanderers from afar may come Aud breathe the air of liberty. Still may hfr flowsrs untrammelled spring, Her harvests » ave, her cities rise ; And yet till time shall fold her wing, Remain earth's lovliest paradise." Standing as we are this day, my countrymen, amidst all these grand results, and gathering to our bosoms as we are, during its peaceful summer hours, all over this broad land the golden sheaves of a harvest which these men planted in tears and watered with their blood, what wonder is it that I have called them great, and ranked them as peers of any time ? " By their fruits shall ye shall know them ; " so judged and thus consid- ered, where in all the pages of history, and amongst aU of those world calls great, where, I ask, will you find any greater than they ? If, however, another Past hath greater dead than ours, and if there be graves which hold sweeter and holier dust than ours, then had I power I should bid these graves to open, and call upon their dead to come forth, that the manhood of the young republic might look upon their mighty forms, rightly read the lesson of their perfect lives, and so themselves become very prophets and priests and kings among men. And now, my countrymen, in a concluding word, what is the moral of the hour, and what the lesson of this passing pageant, this waning day ? We have spoken to you of these great men, and their greater deeds of one hundred years ago. As best we could we told you the wondrous story of the wondrous past. With your own eyes you see, and yourselves everywhere read, the open wide spread page of the still more wondrous present. It only now and yet remains for me to ask of you, and to ask of myself, what of the 72 OUB NATIONAL JUBILEE. future of this great land ? Shall the young republic live ? Shall it continue to grow ? Shall it wax greater and stronger in the years, and the centuries, and the ages yet to come, as it has lived and grown and become great in the years and the century whose requiem dirge we have just sung ? Or shall it, like many of the republics, and kingdoms, and empires, and dynasties of the past, perish utterly from off the face of the earth, leaving not a name, not a vestige, not even a wreck behind it on the shores of time ? By you and by me, and by all who are with us, and ol us to-day, this question — this great question so full freighted with the welfare of the race and the future of the world — must be answered, must be met. God grant that we answer it wisely and meet it well. Let us see to it that wrong be righted every- where. Let us see to it that injustice and iniquity, and fraud and corruption in high places as in low, wherever found, and in whatever form — and of which " 'tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true," the very air seems full to-day — be smitten down by the most righteous wrath, and driven out into the wilderness of punishment by the just indignation of an incensed and outraged people. Let us see to it that no shiboleth of party take prece- dence of truth and honor, and that no false Gods of greed or gain have place and power over honesty and manhood, integrity and the right. So, my countrymen, the Kepublic shall live. So it shall continue to flourish and grow and its " bow abide in strength ; " and so it shall become greater and stronger and cover the earth with its beauty, and all people with its blessings until the latest syllable of recorded time, and so we, each for himself conscious of highest duty best performed, can say to the shining, white-robed hosts, which to-day, even at this- hour, are thronging the battlements of the skies, and bending over us with their love from their far away home beyond the stars, even from that celestial and Eternal City, whose walls are jaspar and whose streets are gold, we, too, have fought the fight ; we, too, have run the race ; we, too, have kept the faith — and so, by the great blessing of God, you have not lived, you have not died, in vain! " Thon, too, sail on, Oh, ship of State ! Sail on. Oh Union, strong and great I Humanity, with all its fears, ORATION JOHN M. KIRKPATRICK. 73 With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate 1 Wo know what Master laid thy keel, What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel, Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, What anvils rang, what hammers beat In what a forge and what a heat Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! Fear not each sudden sound and shock. 'Tis of the wave and not the rock, 'Tis but the flapping of the sail, And not a rent made by the gale ! In spite of rock and tempest's roar. In spite of false lights on the shore, Sail oh, nor fear to breast the sea! Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee; Our hearts, our hopes, onr prayers, our tears, Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, Are all with thee— are all with thee! " THE MAGNIFICENT PRESENT. AN ADDRESS BY HON. HENRY CHAPMAN, DELIVERED AT DOYLESTOWN, PA., JULY 4tH, 1876. Friends and Fellow-Citizens : I ought not to occupy this chair without returning niy thanks for the honor conferred upon me ; for the occasion will be memorable in the annals of the future, and harmonizes with the impulses of the sincerest patriotism. This day, above and beyond all other days, challenges a retro- spect of the past, extending back to that period when this now mighty nation in its infancy bade defiance to the sceptre of a foreign power, and invites a review of the unprecedented strides since then made from year to year in the advancement of the arts and sciences, manufactures, education and population. And after such a review, we reach the present hour — the mag- nificent present — when the happy millions of this broad land, which stretches from ocean to ocean, are assembling without dis- tinction of race, of country, of profession or occupation, of creed or of party, to seal, with the impress of gratitude, the immortal work of the sages and heroes who have long slumbered in their graves. We cannot, if we would, close our eyes to the contrast which is presented between the scene that lowered over the in- fant struggles of this country and that which is now unfolded to our view. He who visits the great International Exhibition, near at hand, will have displayed to his vision the various pro- ductions which the rivalry of nations has brought together from all parts of the globe — they come from every zone — from the mainland and the islands of the sea, and from realms which were in their prime when this continent was unnoticed in the pages of history and not found on the map of the world. He will, also, behold the productions and handiwork of his own fel- low citizens, and there will be enough and more than enough in the display to fill his heart with a glow of patriotic pride. Wliile thus hastily glancing at the past and the present, we may in- ADDRESS HENRY CHAPMAN. 75 dulge in some contemplations and aspirations as to the future. Such have been the astonishing developments in all material pro- gress during the century, and in so short a period, compared* with the ages that have rolled through the archway of time that our astonishment is excited and we are prone to wonder how it was that the human intellect, during those ages, lay dor- mant, and failed to exert itself in the multifarious paths which have since been so successfully and triumphantly trodden. But our wonder subsides when we remember that a man is only an agent of a higher power, which governs him as it does times and seasons, and selects them. We are almost inclined to be per- suaded that the genius of invention has reached its highest ac- complishment in contributing its aid to the various pursuits of mankind; but one may recollect that long, long ago it was thought by the wisest men its greatest achievements had been attained. This fallacy has been exploded, and therefore we may not say we have arrived at the summit of human progress. But while we may advance and transcend the limits of what has been de- monstrated to be practicable, we must remember that we have something else to do. We are bound to cherish what we have and the citizens of this great republic must remember that they are charged by every obligation of patriotism to maintain and perpetuate the liberties and rights of all. The universal assem- blage this day throughout the land is an encouraging omen; and happy be the man and grateful be the man who has lived to see this day. Suchji-d ay c o mesdaukonce in a hundred years ! May the next be crowned by virtue, union, peace, liberty, pros- perity and happiness — if it be not, it will be alone man's fault. For the same glorious sun will shine by day, the same moon and stars will shed their beams by night, the same responsive earth will revolve in its appropriate sphere, the same refreshing waters will flow and ebb, the same seasons will come and pass, and the same all-wise, just and merciful God will be over alL THE BEACON FIEES OF LIBERTY. AN ORATION BY HON. GEORGE LEAR. DELIVERED AT DOYLESTOWN, PA., JULY 4:TH, 1876. Me. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : When the merchant turns his attention to foreign commerce, he designs a craft for ocean navigation, and addresses himself to the task of procuring sound materials and the most approved plans of naval architec- ture. The skeleton of a ship is erected on the stocks, and its ribs covered with oak or iron, well secured with bolts, having neither flaw nor blemish. The hull is finished with all the qual- ities of strength and symmetry, and, upon an appointed day, in the presence of invited guests, with a virgin stationed on the bow with a bottle containing something similar " to the nectar which Jupiter sips," the hawsers are cast loose, the blocks and wedges are removed, and as the ponderous craft glides down the inclined plane, the bottle is broken as the name is pro- nounced in baptismal solemnity, and, with a rush and a plunge, she enters the water, and floats high upon its surface, uncon- trolled and uncontrollable except by extrinsic agencies. But being in its proper element, the next care is to fit it for navigation by the addition of masts and spars, booms and yards, ropes and sails, until the unmanageable hulk becomes a full rigged ship, with her sails bent and her pennons flying, and " she walks the water like a thing of life." Friends are again invited, viands are prepared, and the trial excursion takes place. She sails gaily down the bay to the strains of inspiring music, the sails swell with the freshening breeze, and the pennons wave graceful in the wind as she approaches the waters of the broad ocean. Fearlessly she essays the navigation of the biUowy deep 5 and for the first time she is " afloat on the fierce rolling tide." she is pronounced staunch and sea- worthy, and returns to ship her first cargo, and enter upon the practical business for which she was designed and constructed. ORATION — GEORGE LEAR. 77 One hundred years ago a band of patriots known by the name of the Continental Congress, unskilled and inexperienced in State craft, with fearless and almost reckless disregard of con- sequences, launched their bark upon the unknown and turbu- lent sea of revolution. Not lured like Jason by the hope of the recovery of the Golden Fleece, or like the merchant by the pros- pect of wealth — not investing their private fortunes only in the prospect of private gain or personal ambition— but in the cause of human freedom and the rights of man they " mutually pledged to each other their lives, then fortunes, and then sacred honor." It was not the mere question of the sacrifice of a for- tune, or, in the event of success, untold wealth. It was the launch of the ship of State upon an unknown sea, \fitk fortunes, lives and honor aboard, the venture being the establishment of a nation based on the principle of human equahty ; or, in the event of a failure, the loss of fortune, life and honor. Without any prospect of personal gain under any circumstances, the stake was a nation to freedom or halters to the projectors. After years of untold sacrifices and privations, a nation was organized, and human freedom as the basis of a government was established. But the mere military success of the Revo- lution was not the end. Martial courage, heroic endurance and unselfish patriotism could trample kingly crowns in the dust, and tear the purple robes from the shoulders of royalty, but the destinies of a nation of people, covering almost a continent, were left in their hands, with no one born to govern, and with no experience in any one in the art of government. The ship of State had made a successful trial trip, and had weathered the gale of military contention and strife; but her crew was composed of men accustomed to obey and not to rule. The nations of the earth pronounced her staunch and sea- worthy, and recognized her as a co-ordinate existence. But the question constantly recurred, can she sustain herself in mid- ocean in the long voyage of national existence, with an untrained and undeciplined crew, in the calms of financial depression, and among the rocks and shoals of mutiny and internal dissen- sion ? We are here to-day, as a portion of the passengers who sailed on that good craft, to answer that question. We have 78 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. withstood the shock of battle, the ocean's storm, the tropic's calm, "the broadside's reeling rack," the crew's rebellion, and the hidden dangers of the deep, and with all hands on deck and the flag flying at the fore, we dance over the waves and ride intc the harbor at the end of a voyage of a hundred years, with the ease and grace of excursionists on a summer sea. With all our opening disadvantages, with fortunes broken and general financial prostration, the nation entered upon a career of self-government, then a doubtful experiment, and this is the only republic in the history of the world which has lived to cel- ebrate the centenary of its birth. The problem of government by the people was looked upon as the fond dream of visionaries and theorists designed to captivate the ear of the multitude by the resounding periods of the rhetorician, and shed a glamour over the resonant numbers of the poet's songs of liberty; but practically an impossible hope not to be realized in human society. When the united colonies struck their blow for independence and in the cause of human freedom, the population of the whole country was not equal to that of Penns3'lvania to-day. And in useful productions and the multifarious industries which render a people self-sustaining, they were far behind the present re- sources of this great State. They were not only dependent politically upon the mother country, and governed by laws in the enactment of which they had no voice, but they were commercially dependent. They depended on other countries for many of the necessaries of life. They had a vast territory and a soil of great natural fertility, but its products had to be shipped to other countries to be put into the forms and fabrics for the use of the people. Under such circumstances, the de- claration of independence was an act like that of a commander landing his army on a hostile coast, and burning his ships to cut off the possibility of retreat. It was a bold act, but it was not done recklessly, under a temporary excitement, by men who were ambitious to perform a dramatic act of evanescent courage before the eyes of the world, but by men who were brave, pru- dent, patriotic and wise. There is a system of compensation which runs through all ORATION GEORGE LEAR. 79 human transactions, and it often happens that what seems an element of weakness is a bulwark of strength. The comparative poverty and helpless dependence of the colonies was a bond of union and strength when the connection with Great Britain was once severed. Having to rely upon themselves, they became more firmly knitted together, and this self-dependence increased their trust and confidence in each other. While their priva- tions were greater, their patriotism burned the brighter, and they vied with each other in acts of unselfish heroism, and in the darkest hours of the protracted struggle, the gloom was illuminated by deeds of fortitude, endurance and valor which filled the land with their glory, and challenged the admiration of the world. But this is not a time nor a place for a history of that war, or a recapitulation of its conspicuous events. The pledge of the colonists to each other and to mankind was faithfully re- deemed. The scattered colonies became the nucleus of a great nation. But war leaves its scars as well upon the body pohtic as upon the warrior. The new government was bankrupt. The currency of the country was worthless. The new system of government was to be organized by men who were without experience in the art of government, with large debts and an empty treasury. Here again, more conspicuously than in the war, the poverty of the colonists was an element of strength, and the nursury of patriotism. With no money in the treasury and few resources to raise revenue to pay their debts and carry on the public business, they had their compensation in the fact that there was nothing to steal, and consequently the new gov- ernment did not beget a race of thieves. Men who were con- spicuous for the purity of their fives, their sterling integrity and patriotism and their exalted abilities were sought for and placed in the highest positions of political trust. In those days, it was the belief of the people that the true way to get money was to earn it; that the acquisition of wealth was a slow and toilsome process; and that the evidence of it was the possession and own- ership of substantial property, or the glittering cash, and not a man's ability to place on the market and keep afloat the largest amount of commercial paper. 80 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. With these homely but sound notions of political and per- sonal economy, the people addressed themselves to the task of repairing their fortunes and building up the industries of the country on a firm and substantial bases. Economy in the household and in the government was the rule, and no luxuries were indulged in until the money was earned to pay for them. The habits of the people under a government of and by the peo- ple stamped their impress upon the administration of public af- fairs. Honesty, economy, and public and private virtue were essential elements of respectability, and the general rule of action in pubhc and private life ; and proffiigacy the excep- tion. Cultivating such principles, with a boundless territory, of teeming soil and a free government, we could not fail to be a prosperous and a happy people. " There is no poverty where Freedom is — The wealth of nature is affluence to us all," Having started our ship of State under these auspices, we have tided over the first century of our national existence. On this glad day of our hundredth anniversary, while celebra- ting the most important event in the history of human govern- ments which has ever shed its influence on surrounding nations, and lighted up the dark places of the world, let us like true sailors take our reckoning, and improve the occasion of our re- joicing in this year of jubilee, by ascertaining whether our good ship is on her true course, and to so trim her sails, repair her hull, lay her fairly before the wind, and replenish her stores, that she may live through the calms of financial and business depressions, weather the gales of internal strife, avoid the rocks and shoals of foreign and domestic wars, and repel the attacks of all piratical crafts at home and abroad, during the future pro- ' gress of her voyage over an unexplored and unknown sea; for our future course is not to be a return, and we are not to he listlessly on the water to be borne back by the refluent tide to the harbor whence we sailed. Our course is not backward but forward and onward. And what are the conclusions from our observations ? "What do the soundings indicate ? What is the outlook from the bin- acle? Does the gallant craft still respond to the turn of the ORATION GEORGE LEAK. 81 helmsman's wheel like a thing of intelligence ? Do the " waves bound beneath her like a steed that knows his rider ? " Is she followed by hungry sharks ready to devour her crew, or cheered by the presence of the graceful sea gull, with his wavy motion and virgin plumage ? These questions are asked more to excite reflection than for answers; but it may not be amiss to answer so far as can be done by general conclusions. The stability of the present and the hope of the future are found in the underlying principles of our governments— the universal equality and inalienable rights of all men. Human rights are the rights of all men, and of each man, and they cannot be taken away except so far as he surrenders them. Governments are organized for the protection of human society, but they derive all " then- just powers from the con- sent of the governed."' To this extent a man may surrender his natural rights. The government is from an internal, and not an external source. Man rules himself under our system, and for convenience may do it by a delegated power, to be con- ferred and resumed at stated intervals. His laws, therefore, are of his own making, and while it is his duty as a member of soci- ety to obey them, he has the power of revocation whenever he finds them unjust or oppressive. Under such a form of government, the light of armed revo- lution does not exist. That is only justifiable against a power which he did not create, and which seeks to control or disegard his rights without his consent. The theory of govern ment based upon an hereditary succession of rulers is not only sub- versive of the rights of man, but is an irreverent usm-pation of divine power. The nurture of a sovereign in the cradle, des- tined while a puling infant to be the ruler of a nation, whether an idiot, a tyrant, a statesman, or a fool, is as impious as it is absurd. In organized society man is the source of political power for self-government, although we all acknowledge "a higher law ; " and however much the term may be abused by speculative theorists, and however much the expression may be distorted by or in the interests of political mountebanks, all jurists and law makers recognize a law above human laws, the leges legem, to which all human laws must conform and be made 82 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. subservient. But that law does not take away any human rights. It fosters and protects thern ; and, therefore, it cannot confer the right to rule on hereditary sovereigns. And this principle of equality in rights is universal, and applies to all men, with- out regard to nationality, creed or color. Whether Caucasian, Teuton, Celt, African, or Mongolr n, this question is equally applicable, and it cannot be abrogated by any power beneath that which thundered the laws from Mount Sinai. Man may forfeit his right to life and liberty by his crimes, but this can be done only by the laws in which he has a voice in making. The stability of the present and the hopes of the future are based upon the maintenance of this principle in its integrity ; but it is so firmly seated and so interwoven with every fibre of our existence, that the faith and the hope seem to be well founded. While it is true that there does not seem to be that rigid econ- omy, and unselfish patriotism which characterized the founders of the government, I do not belong to the croakers who believe that all public and private virtue, wisdom and patriotism died with the past. It is an unfortunate disposition, and leads to much unhappiness, to be constantly distrusting every one in public and in private life. I would prefer to be occasionally cheated rather than deal with every man as if I believed him to be a rogue. Under our system, the government will be as good as the people, and the evils which creep into the administration of public affairs begin at the root. People and rulers have departed to some extent from that simplicity which should be the characteristic of a republic ; and by extravagance and luxury — if not riotous living — indulge in expenditures and incur heavy liabilities, to meet which they in- dulge in speculation, and essay to make money of each other, where there is no money, their efforts to grow rich by a short and rapid process result in bankruptcy. They then blame the government, and clamor for legislation to cure the evil, when they can get none from that source. Their remedy is in their own hands, and no where else ; but public officials and ambi- tious men speculate upon their anxiety, flatter their hopes, spend their money and lead them astray. In one view, the people give too much attention to their government. In anoth- ORATION — GEORGE LEAR. 83 er, not enough. They depend too much upon the government to mend their broken fortunes. They give too little attention to the kind of men they select, and depend too much upon creeds and platforms. The evil will go on until it will cure itself in the end. I can lay down a rule which, if rigidly followed, would cure many of the evils which are now charged upon the government. Let every man attend diligently to his own business. Earn the money upon which he lives, and earn it before he expends it. Risk no money in a speculation which he cannot afford to lose, and place none in a doubtful venture but his own. If this course be strictly followed by every man, we will scarcely know we have a government, it will sit so lightly upon our shoulders, and we will soon discover that our business and our fortunes do not depend so much upon the government as upon our- selves. There are more people than is generally supposed who pursue this course ; but they are very much hindered in their slow but certain progress by the large class who pursue a dif- ferent course. Men who spend money they never earned, or owned, must spend that which belongs to others. For many live on what others have toiled to earn. This is one of the great causes of the crippled condition of the industries of our State. But while these things retard our prosperity periodically, they do not shake the foundation principles of our government, or endanger its permanency. The wrecks which float upon the surface are but the broken fragments of the argosies which have been drawn into the insatiate whirlpool of mad specula- tion, dashed in pieces on the rocks beneath, and cast up by the restless waters, a warning to reckless adventurers. The system of fast living and the appropriation of trust funds for private use, which ultimately leads to the theft of public money, are the crying evils of the times. While bolts, and bars, and locks can protect us against common thieves and burglars, we have no security against official thieves except care in the selection of men for official positions of trust and confidence, and the rigid and inexorable enforcement of the law against its infractors, with a merciless punishment of criminals who betray their trusts. And the country is waking up to the importance 84 OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. of this subject and a better era is dawning. " It is always the darkest the hour before day." But this particular manifestation of crime is not peculiar to our times, and does not touch the fundamental principles of our government. The Great Master was betrayed for a bribe, but Christianity still lives ; there was treason in the army of the Revolution, and yet the colonists triumphed ; and there have been defaulters among public officials and corruption in high places in all ages of the world. In our country the remedy against it is in the hands of the people. In nearly all others they have little, if any, control over the public servants. There is, therefore, no reason to despair of our institutions in view of certain mani- festations of corruption among those in positions of trust and confidence. When the crime becomes intolerable the people will rise to the necessity of the occasion, and apply the remtdy which they hold in their hands. But the question arises, are we in a worse condition in this respect than we were in what we regarded as the palmy days of the Republic? We have more facilities for obtaining news than formerly. With our telegraphs and railroads, news travels with great rapidity, and especially bad news ; and our innumer- able newspapers gather that which is the most sensational and exciting. The quiet deeds of charity and benevolence, the self- sacrificing act of heroism, and the thousands of events in private life which ennoble human actions are unknown to the public. The turbulent elements of society come to the surface. The agents of crime get into the courts, and their deeds are heralded everywhere, and newspapers containing the revolting details are constantly thrust before our eyes. " The evil that men do lives after them ; the good is oft interred with their bones." We hear and read all that is evil, but little of the good. And when we take into consideration the difference in the j>opulation of this country between this day and a hundred years ago, being a difference of at least twelve to one, and the fact that evil makes more noise in proportion than the good, it be- comes a very doubtful question whether criminals and crimes ORATTON — GEORGE LEAR. 85 have more than kept pace with the population. That certain offenses against law have assumed a grave magnitude is a thing to be deplored, but in the presence of the good whicli emanates from oiu' beneficent government they are but as the spots on the disk of the sun, which mellow the light by breaking the fierce rays of its overpowering effulgence. But there is no reason to believe that the world is retrograd- ing in morals or honesty. Such a concession would be an ad- mission that civilization, intelligence and Christianity impede the progress of the world and are disadvantageous to mankind ; for there are more schools and seminaries, more books to read; more people to read and understand them, more acts of benev- olence and charity, more culture and refinement, and more peo- ple who worship God to-day than at any other period since the " morning stars sang together " at man's creation. That there are base, gross and wicked people is no new phenomenon. They have infested society and cursed the world since the day when our original progenitor partook of " that forbidden fruit whose mortal taste brought death into the world and all our woe, with loss of Eden." But the beacon fires of liberty burn as brightly to-day as they did on the morning of the Fourth of July, 1770, and the people of the country cherish the principles upon which the brave old patriots of that day established us as a free and independent nation. This morning has been ushered in over this broad land «vith the booming of cannon, the chimes of bells, the blare of the bugle, and the joyful greetings and proud huzzas of the peo- ple. These demonstrations are hearty, earnest and profound. They are the spontaneous outbursts of patriotism — the grand anthems bursting from the full hearts of a free, loyal and intel- ligent people. Why should we not look forward to the future with well- founded hopes, inspired by the success of the past? The staunch ship of State cannot encounter more difficult navigation in the coming century than in the past. She has encountered foes from without and enemies within. She has lain within the trough of the sea, and withstood the earth-shaking broadside ; and while she trembled in every timber and groaned throughout 86 OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. her hull at the " diapason of the cannonade," after the blue smoke of battle had drifted away in curling clouds on the breeze, we looked aloft, and joyfully exclaimed that " our flag is still there !" When the waves of rebellion, with fearful fury crashed upon her in mid-ocean, they were broken and scattered in foam on her hull, and died away in eternal silence at her keel. In calm and storm, in peace and war, our goodly craft has braved a hundred years " the battle and the breeze." To-day all hands are piped on deck to receive instructions and inspiriting encouragement for a continuance of the voyage for an- other century. The winds and tides are fair, the skies are bright, and the sails are set. Gently swaying to the billows' motion, we round the headland, and boldly enter upon the broad expanse of waters. The world of old dynasties, which jeered when we essayed our first voyage, became astonished at our pro- gress, and their astonishment turned into amazement as we pur- sued our successful course. That amazement, as we boldly head out for the open sea on the second century, assumes the aspect of awe. Such a craft, manned by such a crew, carrying a Hag which is known and recognized as the emblem of freedom every- where, is a dangerous emissary among the subjects of kings, em- perors, and despots of every form. Wherever that flag floats, whether waving languidly in the gentle zephyr of the tropics, or fluttering amid the ice crags of arctic desolation, it is hailed as the emblem of freedom and the symbol of the rights of man. To show our influence on the people in the remote corners of the earth, a citizen of the United States, during the trying times of the rebellion, was traveling on the northern coast of Norway ; and, landing from a small steamer at a trading town in the early morning, before the inhabitants were astir, found three fisher- men from Lapland waiting at the door of a store to do some small business in trade. The fishermen appeared to be a father and two sons. They were dressed in skins of the reindeer, and appeared to be half barbarian, illiterate people. They were in- troduced to the American, and when the elder of the Laplanders learned that the distinguished stranger was a citizen of this country, his countenance lighted up with an expression of eager intelligence as he asked : " Are you from beyond the great sea?" ORATION — GEOKGE LEAR. 87 Upon being answered in the affirmative, lie exclaimed : " Tell me, tell me, does liberty still live?" He expressed great satis- faction upon being assured that it did. If on the coasts of the northern frozen seas, in a land of al- most perpetual night, an illiterate fisherman feels such an eager interest in the question of the continued vitality of liberty, what a dangerous messenger will be that ensign of the Ship of State flashing " its meteor glories " among the thrones, crowns, and sceptres of the world. The subjects and victims of oppression will catch " inspiration from its glance," and learning that liberty still lives, will pass the inspiring watchword from man to man. And the cry that " Liberty still lives " will be the world's battle shout of freedom, and the rallying watchword of deliverance. " And the dwellers in the rocks and in the vales, Shall shout it to each other, and the mountain tops Prom distant mountains catch the flying joy, 'Till na.tiou after nation taught the strain, Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round." And in the land of liberty's birth the fires of patriotism will be kept aflame by the iteration and reiteration of the answer to the fisherman's question, that " Liberty still lives." And from the hearts of the crowded cities, from the fireside of the farmer, and from the workshop of the mechanic, in the busy hamlets of labor, and in the homes of luxury and ease, the hearts of free- men will be cheered as our noble craft sails on, with the inspirit- ing assurance that " Liberty still lives." The burden of that cry will float upon the air wherever our banner waves, and its re- sonant notes will fill the land with a new inspiration as the joy- ful assurance is heard. " Coming up from each valley, flnng down.from each height) Our Country and Liberty, God for the right." THE MATCHLESS STORY- AN ORATION BY HON. JOHN OBYKNE. DELIVERED AT WILMINGTON, DEL., JULY 4th, 1876. Mr. Mayor, Councilmen, Citizens and Ladies : One hun- dred years have corne and gone — and in some land the waves of time have left no impress. Not so with us. A century ago what were we ? To-day what are we ? "We were then 3,000,000 of people, we are now over 40,000,000. What does this mean, what wondrous national tale is this ? Is it not a mistake. In all the annaled past the story is matchless. Go back to the frontier line of fact and fable, begiu at the misty border which marks the boundary of exact knowledge, and cull out the most extraordinary stories of national progress ; par- allel them with our tale of a century ; and how dry and insipid are they, how deficient in dramatic force, how slow and limping in gait, how denuded of the element of human happiness, when compared with the marvellous and beneficent growth of our Republic ? The glamor of history is thrown around a Cyrus, a Leoni- das, a Miltiades, an Alexander, a Charlamagne, or Napoleon, and the glowing mind of the student, drinks in the glory of their career as they rise up in demigod proportions to the imagination. Their glories are written in the blood sweat and woe of the conquered. The wail of the captive is heard as the cadenced answer to the shout of triumph. Herein our history differs from that of all others. Our growth is wreathed and en- twined with men's well-being and woman's exaltation. It is a poem of happiness conferred, not of suffering endured. This alone makes our career a blessed one among all the people. Upon the border land of the Atlantic, bounded by the coast range, or the Alleghany and Appalachian mountains, three mil- lions of chosen people dwelt a hundred years ago. They were a chosen people, culled from the best blood of the Norman, ORATION JOHN o'bYRNE. 89 Saxon, and Celt, men whose conscience were their only moni- tors, whose ingrained sense of equality was crystalized in the answer of the New England leader, that " he knew no Lord, but the Lord Jehovah." In this fringe of our continent there were no castelated towers, no ivy-crowned turrets, no baronal keeps* no gothic churches, whose foundations were laid in the gloaming of the Myen age ; all was new. The compacts of the Puritan Mayflower, and the Catholic Dove, resting upon the great char- ter of John, wei e palladium of American rights. Mighty was the power of these compacts and charters, as they gave to the world a republic, which has already overshadowed in freedom, might, glory and prosperity all the political creations of man and compared with the sheen of which all others are opaque. This is seemingly exaggerated, but it is not so. England is held to be the foremost in the race of progressive national de- velopment. A century ago, the fishermen, farmers and planters, of this land met her, beat her, trailed her nag in the mire of Saratoga and Yorktown. She was then triple our population — with the gates of India, the Spice Islands, and the pearly Orient open, through which untold wealth was poured into her exchequer, with the German and Sclave tributaries to her in- dustries. She is now 30,000,000— we are now 40,000,000. Of the great drama of the Revolution I will not speak, it is the sunniest and brightest spot in history, its triumphs are jewels, fit companions for those contests which saved our Japethic civilization from Semetic barbarism, a civilization thrice endangered by the Persian, the Carthagenian, and the Saracen. Our municipal life was eaily freighted with a precious cargo; onward, through the passes of the Alleghanies, the pre- cious burden is carried. The riven pathways are avenues through which the founders of more than Imperial States have passed. The Ohio valley swarm with frontier men, the resonant axe., the muffled rumble of the wagon, the curling smoke of the settlement, the tapping of the woodpecker, warn the huntsman and trapper that settlers with customs codified into law have occupied their haunts, — and their tents and wigwams must be carried onward to the Mississippi, across its rich valleys, over sage desert and rugged peak, up and beyond the back-bone of 90 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. the continent, through the ice passes of the Sierra Nevada, to be met with voyagers who defied alike the rage of the Atlantic and the wrath of the Pacific, to find a home in the Eldorado of our western shores. We have tamed the continent; — at least our allotted part is subservient to man's interest — and therein the laborer who garners the yellow harvest is recompensed with its profits. Not unmixed prosperity and peace have been ours — the rose had thorns and sorely they pricked us. A war for political existence was waged in the infancy of the Republic. Jackson and New Orleans are the magic words which briefly tell the story of its ending. The arts of peace, with the spo- radic exceptions of Indian warfare, dominated and directed the destinies of the Republic for a whole generation after the vic- tory of January, 1815. The brief, brilliant and profitable epis- ode of the Mexican war enlarged our territorial domain, and enshrined the jewels of the Pacific in the quartering^ of our flag. A few little years, and the heavens grew dark — the mighti- est civil war of recorded history was fought. Blood rained upon battle fields, but did not for long. The geographical unity of the country was preserved by the surrender at Appotomax. The old Roman forbade the preservation of any relic or flag which told of a war between Roman and Roman ; no record of civil strife was permitted, and it was wise. Let us imitate the wisdom of the ancients, and pledge ourselves here, upon this joyous, glorious day, in the face of God and our country, to bury the dead past, to preserve no recollection of the works of those dark daj s, but hand in hand, heart to heart, soul to soul, march forward with unity of purpose, to enlarge the prosperity, garner the glory, increase the intelligence, deepen the patriot- ism, and render more enduring than an Egypt pyramid, our Republic ; the sanctuary of right, freedom, and order. One hundred years ago, around the old State House in Phil- adelphia, were gathered no denser crowd than now here, then as now — the declaration of independence was read. It was then to be sustained by serried columns of armed men, now by the votes of unarmed freemen. The grim and bloody visage of war has unruffled its frowns and scars, and the halcyon smiles of peace now wreath the same brow ; but peace has its duties, as well as war, and their performances are sternly demanded. ORATION — JOHN o'BTRNE. 91 "Within the old State House sat the Continental Congress — its story is too well known to need repetition. To-day in the same city, the greatest Congress of the Nations ever before assembled, holds high council. It is not a congress of a race, or a nation ; it is gathering together of all the tribes and peojnes, whom God scattered upon the plains of Shinaar, for impious defiance of his power Although diverse in speech, with Babel's confusion upon every tongue, yet the threshold of unification has been reached, and an acknowledgment by all mankind, from the Malay, Mongolian, Hindostan, Persian, Turk and Arab, as well as from our cog- nate races, that all are brothers, the children of a common father, friendly rivals in the race for human perfection has been had amid the hossanahs of song, and the roar of cannon. God save the Republic ! THE OPEN BIBLE; OE, TOLERANT CHRISTIANITY. The Source and Security of American Freedom and Progress, AN ORATION— BY HON. COURTLANDT PARKER, DELIVERED AT NEWARK, N". J., JULY 4TH, 1876. This is our year of Jubilee. A hundred years have rolled away since the Declaration of our Independence as States, and the formation of the confederacy which ripened into nationality: but little more than two hundred years since the earliest wan- derers " not knowing whither they went," ignorant whether to hope or to despair, left the shallops upon which they had braved the ocean, and sought upon this continent a new home. One hundred years ! The life-time of some few men. Some child born this moment may see the recurrence of a century. But how brief a portion is it of the life of most nations ! In the days of Pericles, Athens had existed over one thousand years. Almost seven hundred intervened between the birth of Augus- tus Caesar and the building of Rome. The census of the great city thirty years before the Christian Era, made its population 4,000,000 souls. Sixteen hundred years comprise the life-time of Egypt from its foundation until Cambyses became its conqueror, while from the union of the Kingdoms of Great Britain under the name of England, until the birth of Shakespeare, was over seven hundred years ; from thence till now, more than three hundred more. The greatness of America attained in one hun- dred years, judged by the ordinary tests of national progress, can perhaps best be appreciated by such a brief summary, ex- hibiting at a glance the time required for the development of other Empires, in contrast with that taken for our own. The century over which we rejoice has been one of rare devel- opement in every quarter, and in every field of human progress. Think of the events which have distinguished it. That establish- ment of separation from the mother country which we wrongly term the war of the Revolution ; the rightly called Revolution of ORATIOl^— COllRTLAttDT r-ARKER. 93 France ; the wars succeeding, which devastated Europe, and illustrated the career of the greatest captain of the world; the sin- gular, romantic and varying life of his distinguished nephew, passing from a prison to a throne, and thence to inglorious flight and death in luxurious exile ; the rise of the great Russian Empire from almost barbarism to the second station among civilized nations ; the creation of Australia ; the almost new creation of Italy ; the subjugation, complete, though sudden, of France to Germany ; as sudden and more complete than when the brave and adventurous Henry the Fifth brought to his knees the French monarch of his day at the bloody field of Agincourt ; the roman- tic conquest of Mexico by our own arms ; the strange revelation and settlement of California ; and springing from or at least con- nected with it the stupendous Civil War through which we our- selves have passed, with its momentous consequences to us, to the race so long enslaved among us, to all mankind, in that it has demonstrated the inherant toughness of Democracy, and re- vealed that we are a Nation which, if it may crumble, can never be overcome or fall ; all these and many more historical events have distinguished this great century and made it most remark- able of all which the world has ever seen. The man whose life spans it, has beheld more stupendous changes than were ever crowded before within so short a time. It cannot be fairly aUeged that the century past excells its pre- decessors in individual, intellectual or moral development. Know- ledge has been widely diffused, and in certain directions greatly increased. But it is not the era of great men, of deepest and most powerful thinkers. It seems as if diffusion was almost in- consistent with depth. The distinction of the age is in discovery, more than in thought. But in this region, namely, that of ma- terial discovery, the deeds of the century have been even more remarkable than its political history. Who can enumerate them ? Invention has been most prolific and successful, revolutionizing the methods and laws of life and action everywhere. In war, the clumsy firelock and insignificant though awe-inspiring ord- nance of 1776 have given place to the breach-loader, the revolver, the chassepot and needle-gun, the mitrailleuse, the rifle cannon, the huge columbiad and other mighty weapons, whose roar 94 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. makes that which appalled our forefathers seem nothing m com- parison, while fortifications once impregnable are now regarded as utterly and absurdly unavailing. The " wooden walls of Eng- land '' have come to be despised. A Yankee contriver produced a contemptible naval " cheese-box '' whose marvelous success, both for offense and defense, has thrown doubt on the utility of ordin- ary ships, and art is now seeking in submarine navigation and the use of torpedo boats the means of naval attack and defense. It is through war that nations attain Peace, and to-day the art of war is not simply revolutionized ; it is positively mystified ; taught to distrust everything it knows, groping for some dis- covery or invention by which to contend successfully with the in- ventions which have made old schemes and weapons ridiculous. In agriculture, methods and means are entirely changed. True, the old plans remain. Virgil's Georgics may stiU instruct the farmer. The plow, the harrow, the spade, the hoe, the scythe, the flail and the sickle still remain. But with these ancient im- plements, the reaper, the mower, the planter, the thresher, and a host of other labor-savers have largely done away with personal toil, whilst chemistry and science have made the earth teem with strange fertility, and the art of gardening has furnished its vo- taries with the power of almost creation. In medicine and surgery the progress of the century is per- haps most remarkable. Vaccination has all but quelled the direst of all pestilences. Chemistry has supplied specifics remedy- ing in skillful hands almost every chronic disease, while anaes- thetics have robbed surgery of its terrors and made operations possible and common which before men never dared. The vic- tories of medical and surgical skill over disease and death dur- iug the wars which have lately scourged Europe and America have illustrated a heroism, individual and professional, not ex- celled in any age : a devotion to duty and to scientific research of which the world may well be proud. In mechanics what triumphs have abounded. The perfected cotton-gin brought into many times multiplied use as a fabric for clothing, warmth and decoration almost unknown before, and stimulated an agriculture, the value of which changed the seat of empire. But the steam engine — what differences to mankind ORATION COURTLANDT PARKER. 95 have not been produced by its discovery and application. The stationary steam engine disembowels the earth or foils fable in the multiplication of mechanical production. Applied as a mo- tive power it has changed the habits and character of the world. The steamboat upon our rivers ; the magnificent steamship defy- ing nature and making the ocean its slave ; the locomotive, an- nihilating space and time, binding together distant realms and opposite oceans, so that no region on earth seems any longer foreign ; could imagination picture what would happen were the use of steam suddenly lost ? Yet before this century it was not known. Even more wonderful in its effects upon mankind has been the discovery of magnetism and the telegraph. Europe lies iust across the road. Its inhabitants are our companions with whom we hold daily converse. Catalogue a few of the mechanical inventions of this wonder- ful century. The steam engine, the telegraph, the photograph, the hydraulic press, the repeater, the steamboat, the steamship, the locomotive, the diving bell, the rolling mill, the sewing ma- chine. In each word what revolutions in Science and Art and in the habits of life and society start up before the mind. A noticeable fact in regard to most, if not all, these revolution- izing inventions is that they were the work either of Englishmen or Americans. The progress of the century is mainly due to this one branch of the human family, and the same thing is true most extensively of minor inventions and discoveries. This may be called the Anglo-American century. Other peoples have adopted what Englishmen or American have suggested or begun. But these have led in the march of society. Whence this striking fact ? Whence the prominence, and I hesitate not to stay, without stopping more carefully to prove it, the superiority of this race of mankind during the century just concluded ? It was not always so. Up to the reign of Eliza- beth and even to its termination in 1G03, Spain was a greater power than England; Spaniards more enterprising as sailors and discoverers; more distinguished in the history of the world. A hundred years before, three hundred Spaniards had conquered Cuba. Some ninety years previous, Cortez had taken Mexico. 90 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. About the same time, Magellan sailed through the straits which bear his name and thus entered the Pacific Ocean. A few years later, in 1533, PizaiTO completed his wicked conquest of Peru. France at that time was likewise greater than England, and even colonized in America with greater energy and earlier. The Em- pire of the "Western World was long the prize of doubtful strug- gle among these three great nations. Even North America was parceUed among them. Florida, named by its Spanish Gover- nor in 1512 and only ceded to the United States in 1821, and Canada, whose dominion by the French began in 1535 and ended in 1759, show by their very names how easily the destiny of this land of ours might have been altered. Again do we recur to the question, why the prominence dur- ing the last century of England and America ? Why their won- derful progress, while other nations, greater once than England, and far greater than infant America, even when progressive, halt and fall behind ? I speak of the progress of England during this eventful cen- tury, taking it into consideration at the same time with our own. It is right and profitable that we do so — it will tend to restrain our pride, and if rightly studied, perhaps to give us lessons for our future. Let us pause in our consideration of the great question proposed, and glance, though but a moment, at the mighty structure, the British Empire. The area of the British Isles is some 123,000 square miles; less than California, or Dakotah, or Montana; not half as large as Texas; somewhat over twice as large as the State of New York. But the area of aU other British possessions is 3,031,827 square miles, situate everywhere, so that it is true, without a fig- ure, that Britain's morning drum heralds the sun in its progress through the world. And this, though our arms wrested from Great Britain so much of all the immense country now belong- ing to the United States and its territories, conrprising no less than 3,014,784 square miles. The population of these islands in 1871 was 31,817,108. But under their sway, there were besides 208,091,858. In 1780, the population of these islands did not exceed 15,800,000. That of their possessions certainly then bore no comparison to the num- ber existing now. ORATION CORTM.NDT PARKER. 97 The population of the United States, in 1790 was 3,929,214; 1S70, 38,558,371. The area of the original States was only 820,680. That of the Union now 3,014,784. It were enough for America to be the daughter of such a mother. The grandest proof of our progress is the fact that the population of the Union to-day exceeds that of the islands of Great Britain by some 7,000,000, while one hundred years ti<*o, our numbers were scarcely one-fifth of theirs; nearly 12,000,000 less. It were profitless to go farther; to state the material wealth of these two great Empires or to show their increase in the cen- tury. It is enough to realize the number subject to their do- minion — the extent of the world's area over which each rules. We come back to the question most interesting, why the prom- inence of these two great commonwealths; why their admitted eminence in progress during this eminently progressive century ? Each owes much to isolation and abundant opportunity; much to the blood which flows in the veins of its people; much to the civil institutions which have moulded their character, and throu OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. always been temporary and at last rejected, and while we in America have always scouted an established Church with a rem- nant to-day of the rancor of the fathers against it, we yet may doubt whether, without the establishment of Churches in Eng- land, Scotland, Holland and other commonwealths, our form of Christianity could have been so strong, or civilization and pro- gress so advanced and secure. For the forces opposed to the open Bible were, and are even still, so organized and so supported by civil power, that like or- ganization and support were perhaps necessary. The ends of Providence, one may almost think he sees, required that England, the chosen chief champion of Protestant Christianity and illus- tration of its effects, a European power with others to contend with or to influence, should be for all these centuries more of a monarchy than a republic, while America, afar off, to whom all must come over the seas, but with an illimitable future in its im- mense area, could with safety at once exemplify that republic- anism to which the open Bible leads. And so in the Providence of the Most High, there came about for Britain the established Churches of the two Kingdoms, combined with their noble Uni- versities and schools, while in America the hearts of men were led to the establishment of the system of Public Schools, in itself and by itself insufficient, except that in them, as every where else, there was permitted the open Bible, and except Colleges and Universities, developing a higher culture than is possible in Public Schools, were consecrated to positive instruction in relig- ion. It is these great agencies at home and abroad that have done the great work of this marvellous century; the Church, the Col- lege and the School, all fostered by the Civil Law and shaped by Providence with a skill in adaptation equal to that in physical culture for the production of the peculiar growths required there and here. A word more on this topic, tiresome though I may be. The distinction of the British Constitution is its composite nature, the harmony with which it commingles all three of the known forms of government. Its outward strength lies in its aristo- cracy which remains in England, though it has perished almost ORATION — CORTLANDT PARKER. 107 everywhere else, and exerts a conservative force whose value can hardly be overestimated; especially because it supplies reward for merit and exertion, and thus constantly keeps up the exis- tence of intellectual ability and strong character. The great- ness of Britain is largely due to this. The number of men of force and culture there, as well as the extent of culture when it exists, is very great. And yet it is not difficult to see that this is in a great degree the fruit of the Puritanism I have described, the true Puritan- ism, earliest offspring of the open Bible. It was this earnest re- ligion that created most, if not all, of those numerous endowed schools everywhere to be found ; in all of which religious teach- ing is a prominent feature, and which are the nurseries of Scholarship. From the lowest, meritorious pupils pass as a re- ward to some higher, one and from that to some still higher, until at last the peculiar few reach Oxford or Cambridge, where industry and success reap exalted reward in fellowships, in the Church, or even Parliamentary membership. And then pro- fessional success and merit are rewarded by office, honor and heriditary nobility, so that the aristocracy is constantly renewed with a new and vigorous growth — and the race of Englishman proper is perpetuated. The system estabhshed here under the inspiration of the earliest settlers, and wrought into the frame work of our civil polity, was calculated to attain like results without repression of popular power. It is easy to see how it has shaped American characteristics and promoted American individualities. It had, like the other, several distinct means. First, the Public School, and in it always and everywhere and originally as a means of in- struction, the open Bible. Second, Endowed Schools, Colleges and Seminaries, all for the most part under denominational in- fluence, and all thus teaching religi< »us truth. Third, Volun- tary Churches with their educational adjuncts, the great source after all of popular and universal education, and upon which, to- day, the liberty and progress of America depend more directly than upon any other foundation. Through these we have as yet prospered ; very much because of that' feature of our Con- stitution, out-growth itself of evident Providence, by which we 108 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. are divided into separate states or communities, and enabled thus more thoroughly to attend to these important fundamental forces. It is under their stimulus that American character is so independent, so self- asserting, so intelligent, so progressive, so universally, perhaps, audacious in every field of thought and action. The differences between American and English charac- ter are plainly traceable to the universal diffusion of education among us — to its comparatively superficial character — to the exclusively materialistic nature of the rewards to be gained by exertion. And alas, with all, there is clear experience of one great inherent defect : so great that unless it is met speedily, the end of all may come, that that Bible which created and shaped our freedom, and veneration and love for which, origin- ated our schools, is, practically, no longer open there ; is in fact, in many places, the only book legally and by name forbidden and excluded. Such a possibility, it is plain, never occurred to the fathers, whether of the seventeenth or the eighteenth cen- tury. Had they dreamed of it, they would have framed our Constitution so as always to avoid it. A horror of religious tyranny, an enthusiasm for religious freedom and for the formu- laries of religious toleration, led them to forget the dangers which might spring from the toleration of systematic irreligion and from the acts of those who, too highly valuing their own creed, first undermine public education by obtaining the exclusion of religion from Schools, and then prepare to attack the system as therefore positively and absolutely injurious. My Fellow Citizens : If I have seemed thus far desultory and not practical, I trust it has been only in appearance. I meet you on the threshold of a new century, a century called by the Avoiid the second century of the Republic, but really the third, substantially, of the formation of the American nation, a graft, yet a separate stock from England in this continent, then the region of vastness and mystery. The train of thought I have thus far followed I trust is natural and pertinent. The chief distinctions of the century ; to whom they specially belong ; that they have resulted from the natural action, under Provi- dence, of that peculiar sort of freedom which is British in contra- distinction to that of any other nationality ; the origin and ORATION CORTLANDT PARKER. 109 individualities of that freedom, its intrinsic characteristics and worth : how it has been nurtured and maintained abroad — how here among ourselves ; these are the great topics at which I have glanced, suggesting them merely to your future reflection, and all along with a practical purpose, to wit, to sound the alarm for the future of the Public School, and of the country, whose in- stitutions confessedly depend upon it, and to appeal to all to up- hold and extend collegiate education under denominational in- fluences as a means beyond the reach of political majorities, whereby the open Bible may still be a positive institution, its precepts positively inculcated, and the freedom and progress which depend upon it thus perpetuated. For, if we will only observe and think, we must plainly see that, so far, no freedom has lasted, anywhere, where there was not the open Bible — that is to say, the Christian religion, with perfect toleration. It is just here that I am met with the ordinary and plausible objection that the American Constitution acknowledges no re- ligion, and does not even mention a God, and that its only reference to it is the amendment " that Congress shall make no law respecting an -establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," the argument being that nothing which teaches religion can be done under the provisions of law. To which there is easy reply : first, that the subject is one not intended to belong to Congress, nor to the national Legislature ; that it concerns internal police, a topic entirely reserved to the States ; that if this is not fully correct still the very amendment, construed by the established rule " Expressio unius est exchisio, altei'ius," legalizes all legislation by Congress on the subject of religion not implying its establishment nor the prohibition of its free exercise — and that it is to the Christian religion beyond all doubt that this amendment relates. And this view is strengthened by a later amendment which makes a difference in guilt between those in arins against it who have taken an oath (appealing thereby to Grod) to support the government, and those who have not. I add that Congress has, from the beginning, legislated and acted so as to acknowledge religion > as by requiring an oath of office and oaths from witnesses and by punishing perjury, by establishing by rule the opening of HO OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. their sessions with prayer, and by constituting chaplains, both for themselves and for troops, and manifold other acknowl- edgments of the Supreme Being and the Christian religion which He has ordained. And going back to documents still operative, except so far as expressly and by necessary implication repealed, w T e find the articles of confederation recite that "it has pleased tbe Great Governor of the world to incline the hearts of the Legislatures of the various States to ratify this perpetual union ; " we find the Declaration of Independence asserting the being of God, His Creation and the equality He established among men, appealing to Him as the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of the intentions of its signers, and expressing that they rely on "Divine Providence for protection" in the struggle they initiated ; we find Congress after the Revolution passing the celebrated ordinance of 1787, for the government of the territory Northwest of the River Ohio, and declaring certain articles of compact between the original States and the people and States in the territory, forever unalterable save by common consent, in order to " extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty which form the bases whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions are erected, and to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all law and consti- tutions, and governments which forever shall be formed in the said territory ; " and among these articles is the following : " Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged" If these citations, with the practice of the Continental Congress and that which succeeded it, the successive Presidents and the various Departments, Executive and Judicial, all in acknowledgment of the claims of the Christian religion, do not negative the alle- gation that the Nation, as such, has no religion, it is difficult to say how such a charge can as to any nation be disproved. The ordinance of 1787, when it mentioned religion and mo- rality and made schools and education having them for its purpose or effect an unalterable compact between the old Thirteen and all its Northwest future, referred to the Christian Oration — cortlandt parser. Ill religion ; that religion which was held by all the people then within the newly-established confederation. That ordinance remained in force, notwithstanding the subsequent Constitu- tion, and by it the government positively declared that it had a religion ; that that religion was Christian, and that it was for- ever to remain and be promoted by schools. But this argument for the Bible; in the schools does not stop with the consideration of the national Constitution. As already said, the subject does not ex natura belong to Congress nor to national matters ; it concerns internal police, a topic entirely reserved to the States, and when we consider the question in this light, all doubt dissipates. For those who will study the history of the various Colonies, will find in each that the main- tenance and propagation of the Christian religion was one of their chief motives. If this was conspicuously true in New England, it was also true elsewhere, and especially in this our State of New Jersey. The Dutch who peopled Bergen and Somerset, the Quakers who found their home at Salem and Burlington, as well as the English Puritans who settled at Eliza- beth, Newark and Woodbridge, and the Scotch who came later direct to Baritan Bay, all brought with them a deep sense of religion and sought its perpetuation. The laws of the early colonists stamped their form of Christianity on the com- monwealth, and they have never been repealed. Our latest constitution formally adopts the Common law of which it is part, and in an illustration of it there yet appears upon our statute book a law in the words following : " all impostors in religion such as personate our Saviour Jesus Christ, or suffer then followers to worship or pay divine honors, or terrify, de- lude or abuse the people by false denunciation of judgments, shall, on conviction, suffer fine and imprisonment." And another : " if any person shall wilfully blaspheme the holy name of God, by denying, cursing or contumaciously reproach- ing His being or providence, or by cursing or by contuma- ciously reproaching Jesus Christ or the Holy Ghost, or the Christian religion or ihe holy word of God (that is, the canon- ical Scriptures contained in the books of the Old and New Tes- tament) or by profane scoffing at or exposing them or any of 112 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. them to contempt and ridicule, any person so offending shall, on conviction, be punished by fine," or in State's Prison. The first constitution of the State, whose date is July 2, 1176, a De- claration of Independence prior to that in Philadelphia, made by a convention convened a month before and in session a century ago this day, declares in Article xix. that " there shall be no es- tablishment of any one religious sect in this Colony, in prefer- ence to another, and that no Protestant inhabitant of this Col- ony shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil rights merely on account of his religious principles, but that all persons profess- ing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect * * * * shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and immunity en- joyed by others, their fellow subjects.'' The present Constitution, confirmed June 29, 1844, begins with the fitting preamble, " We, the people of the State of New Jersey, grateful to Almighty God for the civil and religious lib- erty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing upon our endeavors to secure and trans- mit the same unimpaired to succeeding generations, do ordain and estabhsh this Constitution." Succeeding sections secure and perpetuate the fund for free schools for the equal benefit of all the people of the State. Can a reasonable man contend that in endeavoring to secure and transmit civil and religious liberty, a people greatf ul to A lmighty God for it, and looking to Him for a blessing, can begin by driving His word from the schools, the chosen means of securing this security ? It is objected that this fund is for the equal benefit of all, and that if the Bible be in the school, those who deny it, or oppose its inculcation, pay tax without a benefit. I answer, that the context describes the public school as for the equal benefit of all, and so it is if aU may, if they please, have advantage from it. Whatever the reason for which I do not choose to use it, it is my fault, if not my loss. I pay taxes for roads which I never use, for sewers with which I will not connect, for gas which I will not introduce. All taxes suppose equal benefit to all the as- sessed. No one can resist payment if by possibility, living with- in the district, he may have the benefit he refuses. It is insisted by some that no use of the Bible can be made ORATION — CORTLANDT PARKER. 113 without in some degree teaching the opinions, held by the teach- er, and that therefore the rights of sects are involved. The an- swer is that the risk is nothing to the harm which must occur if anything like morals or religion is excluded from the schools. Beside, the argument would interdict all legal proceedings. Why should it be that the Bible should be acknowledged by oaths taken upon it, its Author daily appealed to as the final Judge of the World ; belief in a future state of rewards and punishments made the test of the capacity to speak truth ; and yet the Book and the name of the Almighty be excluded from the schools. What is this but to teach irreligion ? And what is that but to make education a curse, instead of a blessing ? Says wise and good Sir Thomas More in his Utopia : " If you allow your people to be badly taught, their morals to be corrupted from their childhood, and then when they are men punish them for the very crimes to which they have been trained in childhood — what is this, biit first to make them thieves, and then to punish them ?" Some say : divide the cost of public education among the sects, on condition of their maintaining the schools. Such a course would be resigning to others a duty which belongs to the State. Its result would be the abandonment of the fundamental princi- ple of the Republic, expressed by Burke in the oft-repeated say- ing that "education is the cheap defence of nations ;'' more di- rectly, that public safety requires the State to see to it that her citizens are fit to rule. In truth, the State ought to compel every child to attend some school. She cannot confide to others a du- ty so vital. I should be ashamed, feUow citizens, to apologize for the se- riousness of my subject. Its importance and propriety cannot be over estimated. No Fourth of July should be disgraced by bombast and self-adulation by exhilarants or anaesthetics. It is the National Sabbath, and like a sabbath, should be dedica- ted, not simply to rest and joy, but also to self-improvement. But this Centennial anniversary is a day of peculiar solemnity. Its arrival is a test of our national stability. We have invited the world to meet and rejoice with us. Only through God's mercy does it come to us. We have been snatched as the brands from the very fire. It might have been a day of silence, of 114 Our national iftjBitEJ!. shame and despair. The occasion calls for gravity, self-exami- nation, truth, resolution of amendment, as well as for thankful- ness and hope. Honest self-scrutiny forbids unmixed confi- dence. Time, the nation has passed through many dangers. Foreign war has only strengthened it. Out of the terrific civil conflict from which we have just emerged, whose embers still smoke and every now and then almost blaze, it has come, poli- tically, stronger than ever. But while the edifice stands erect, when the people of the earth doubtful through the amazing struggle, are astonished and in view of the great things enacted before their eyes, the great mountain, whose top stone has been brought forth with shoutings, cry, " grace unto it," while we hail the day as a minister of fraternity — a day of hand-shaking that is no longer a bloody chasm — a day of the fatted calf without a jealous brother, there are suddenly revealed signs of evil, occa- sions of grave anxiety. What timber in our edifice is sound ? What stone beyond risk of crumbling? What spikes free from rust? What fastenings wholly secure? How dreadfully are we not illustrating the wisdom of Plato the Divine, when he said " as long as beggars hungering and thirsting for office, rush in- to the administration of public affairs, political life will be but a fierce contest for shadows, a strife for civil pre-eminence, as though this were in reahty the highest good : laws will be but the remedies of quack physicians, giving temporary relief, yet ultimately aggravating what they cannot cure, whilst the rotten- ness of the foundation will finally bring down the superstruc- ture, whatever may be the external form to which its security may be fondly confided." The passage I quote seems well nigh inspired. Corruption, moral rottenness is the great danger of this Republic. Not in politics alone; far less in the action of one party or the other. What we find there, is but illustrative of what is elsewhere, yea, everywhere, Materialism is so tri- umphant. It has so eaten into the heart of all good things — I had almost said, of all good men. The higher life is so un- popular, so derided, so dispised. What is generally desired that is not gilded ? How few dispise glitter and sound ? How in- sane is the appetite for success ? How dolefully do we all gaze around, searching for men — men such as we have read of — such ORATION CORTLANDT TARKRR. 115 as some of us have known — fit to be called statesmen. I do not say we have none. Thank God! we have, but, comparatively, how few. Most are but aspirants for personal success— the suc- cess of sound, of glitter, of shoddy style. It is the fault of our educational habits that then- scoj>e is so contracted. We hurry into action. The sooner at work, every man thinks, the better. So men are in action unequipped. And even the best rush by the shortest road towards their meditated goal. How many wait and seek the formation of character, make that their motive, and then seek or accept life's tasks as duties. And so, general rottenness goes on, till even the horrid expositions on which the press batters to-day would be almost welcomed as necessaiy to the hope of better things, if it were not for the fear that famili- arity with scandal and tilth may breed contempt for evil accu- sation. It is in view of this underlying want of moral tone, cropping out in every quarter that I have chosen and press my subject to-day. I have endeavored to speak as they would speak who laid the foundations of our freedom and progress, the men of 1GG4 who once walked these streets, who laid its broad avenues and parks, who established here religion and law, whose char- acteristics still live recognizable in many a descendant, whose lives and plans still contribute to the happiness we enjoy. I have endeavored to speak as they would speak who rejoiced one hundred years ago over the news of the Declaration we cele- brate — a Declaration to which they came slowly, unwillingly, only from conscientious belief in its necessity, in calm religious resolution. I have endeavored to speak as he would speak, chief promo- ter of the subsequent constitution, and so most of all, the Father of his Country. Hear this Proclamation, made immediately on the completion of the Constitution, as an illustration of his views on the ques- tion whether the nation has a religion, and how intimately that religion should be connected with education. 31 fi OUR NATIONAL JTTBTLEE. BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. A PEOCLAMATION. Whereas, it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the Provi- dence of Almighty God, to obey His Will, to be grateful for His Benefits, and to humbly implore His Protection and Fa- vor ; and whereas, both Houses of Congress have, by their joint Committee, requested me " To recommend to the peo- " pie of the United States a day of public Thanksgiving and "Prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with giateful " Hearts the many and signal Favors of Almighty God, espe- " cially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to estab- " lish a Form of Government for their Safety and Happiness ;" Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the twenty-sixth day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the Service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be ; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble Thanks for His kind Care and Protec- tion of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation ; for the signal and manifold Mercies, and the favor- able Interpositions of His Providence in the Cause and Conclu- sion of the late War ; for th? great Degree of Tranquility, Union and Plenty which we have since enjoyed ; for the peace- able and rationable Manner in which we have been enabled to establish Constitutions of Government for our Safety and Hap- piness, and particularly the National one now lately instituted; for the civil and religious Liberty with which we are blessed, and the Means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful Knowl- edge ; and, in general, for all the great and various Favors which He hath been pleased to confer upon us. And also, That we may then unite in most humbly offering our Prayers and Supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our National and other Transgressions ; to enable us all, whether in public or private Stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually ; to render our National Government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a Government of wise, ORATION — CORTLANDT PARKER. 117 just and constitutional Laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed ; to protect and guide all Sovereigns aud Nations, (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us ;) and to bless them with good Government, Peace and Concord ; to promote the Knowledge and Practice of true Religion and Virtue, and the Euerease of Science among them and us ; and generally, to grant unto all Mankind such a Degree of temporal Prosperity as He alone knows to be best. Given under my Hand, at the City of New- York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand, seven hundred and eighty-nine. G. WASHINGTON. I would speak the sentiments of these fathers on this solemn day. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. It is ever in danger. Now from foreign enmity — now from intestine strife — at other times, as now, from the growth of corruption — irrever- ence for right as right, materialism, defiling everything, destroy- ing time manhood, disgusting the good and competent with public affairs, and leaving the State to be managed and directed by cun- ning incompetency, seeking and using place for profit, scoffing at duty, — in a word, from moral rottenness. And the escape and, blessed be God there will be escape — I speak with no fear, for God is with us — from ruin to come, the ruin that has befallen other republics, the ruin that has so far been avoided, because our freedom is that which comes of the open Bible, is restoration and increase of its dominance and influence. Stand by it, fel- low citizens, as the true Palladium of your liberties. Maintain the schools — and maintain it in the schools. Let it be an insti- tution there, recognized and revered. Thus much can we do as citizens, nor little as it seems can we over estimate its extent. But this must not be all. In every way must we seek to saturate the community with Christian morality. The Church, the Sunday School, Colleges and Academies where religion is directly taught, the support of these is not only our duty as Christians. It is our duty also as patriots. The very infidel, if he loves his country, will aid in the promulgation of tolerant Christianity and the morality it inculcates. For, let no man doubt that just 118 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. iu proportion to the extent that that morality prevails, just in proportion as we remain the land of the open Bible— in that proportion, and that only, may we be assured that our freedom and progress will last, and that another century will find the Nation one great, happy, republican and free. ADDKESS BY COL. ALBERT E. LAMAR. delivered at the centennial celebration, savannah, ga., july 4th, 1876. . Fellow Citizens : Impelled by causes not necessary to be mentioned here, for many years the people of this country have failed to gather in the spirit of patriotic devotion around a com- mon altar. But to-day, from one end of the land to the other, the people will renew their vows to the great principles which gave birth to the American republic in 1776. Standing in the shadow of a dead century and facing the dawn of a coming one, the people of Savannah have determined to light again the torch of liberty, and with confident hopes to transmit it to their chil- dren and their children's children. In order to give suitable mark to this Centennial day 'they have selected a gentleman to read to you the Declaration of Independence, a document whose vehement eloquence not only moved the arms and hearts of American patriots, but set Europe ablaze in revolution a hun- dred years ago. I have the honor to introduce to you Capt. Kobt. Falligant, a gentleman who in the last struggle for consti- tutional liberty nobly distinguished himself, and illustrated Georgia, his native State, CENTENNIAL GROWTH IN NATIONALITY, INDUSTRIES, AND EDUCATION- AN ADDRESS BY HON. HENRY BARNARD, L.L.D., DELIVERED AT HARTFORD, CONN., JULY 4tH, 1876. Fellow-Citizens, Countrymen, one and all, for on this day, al- though we meet here formally as one of the cities and towns of this Commonwealth at the call of our chief municipal officer, and on the proclamation of the Governor of the State, we are members of a still larger community, governed by one Consti- tution, having a common history, and sharing in the weal or the woe of a common destiny — we are an integral part of a great whole, a Nation whose marvelous expansion in territory by peaceful acquisition, whose vast increase of numbers by annual accessions of people flying to us as to a city of refuge from every country on the globe, whose rapid development of diversi- fied occupations, of comfortable homes, and publi-c institutions of learning, science, and religion, we have come together from the promptings of our own hearts, as have ten thousand other local communities all over the land, to commemorate, as the di- rect and legitimate fruits of that Declaration, which has just been so well read, and of the acts which followed. In that Decla- ration, and in those results, my countrymen, you and I, all of us, speakers and hearers, find to-day not only the themes of our meditations but our inspiration, and the springs of that exultant joy with which we hail the morn that ushers in the second century of our national existence. That Declaration was made by the Representatives of the Colonies as States-United, the war which it justified was carried on by their joint councils and arms, and the Confederation, or Compact of States which had be- gun to loosen even before the war was ended, and threatened to dissolve iu anarchy and disgrace as soon as the pressure of a common enemy was removed, was in 1787 consolidated into a ADDRESS — HENRY BARNARD. 121 Constitutional Republic, national in all the essential attributes of sovereignty, leaving to each State all administration which touched the immediate interests of families and individuals. I. Let us, then, in the spirit of that Proclamation issued by President Washington on the 3d of October, 1789, in less than six months after his inauguration as President of the United States, in pursuance of a joint resolution of both Houses of Con- gress, and " of the bounden duty of all nations," — thank God, liumbly and sincerely, " for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation ;" " for His providential interposition in the course and conclusion of the late war ;" and " for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of gov- ernment for our safety and happiness, and especially for the national one now lately instituted ; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge ;" and beseech Him " to enable us to render our national government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, faithfully executed and obeyed." Under the operations of this national government the territory of the republic has been augmented seven-fold, until it exceeds the area of all the States of Europe ; the population has increased from 3,000,000 to 40,000,000 ; the thirteen States have multi- plied to thirty-eight, each charged with only that local admin- istration relating to land, business, travel, traffic, schools, churches, charities, and police, which touches nearly every family and individual, while the larger interests of emigration, commerce, currency, international and interstate communica- tion, the general welfare and the protection of all from aggression or belligerent legislation, foreign or domestic, are left national. To this increase of territory and population, and to the co- ordinate administration of all these local and national interests, there appears no limit fixed in natural laws, or the capacities of the people, if properly trained to sobriety of judgment and life. Surely, no other government in the same age of the world has conferred so many benefits on its own people, or interfere! less with the happiness of others. 122 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. II. The growth of the country in all its diversified industries is most conspicuously shown in the Centennial Exposition now open in Philadelphia. Although I have made two visits, I feel myself utterly unprepared to describe the wealth, splendor, and variety of industrial productions of our own and other coun- tries gathered within the grounds of that Exposition. For our present purpose it will suffice to say that we should be deeply thankful that the necessities of our early settlers, and of the great mass of all who come to this country now to abide with us, as well as the development of our national resources, make labor — labor of hand and head — the normal condition of all our people. Under this stern necessity, invention has been quick- ened and applied to all agricultural, commercial, and manufac- turing operations, in such various and useful ways, as can only be appreciated when brought together and actually seen. III. The earliest schools on this continent were instituted by the Dominicans and other religious orders of the Catholic Church in Mexico, Central America, and the French settlements in Canada, before 1600. The earliest Free School, so-called, in the English colonies, was established at Charles City, Virginia, through the efforts of Rev. Patrick Copeland, in 1621. These efforts had been preceded by the Virginia Company in a grant of 10,000 acres of land in Henrico county to a college at James- town, ' for the training up of the children of the infidels in true religion, moral virtue, civility, and other godliness,' for which purpose the King had granted in 1618 a special license for a general contribution over his realm of England, which was taken up in 1619, and amounted to £2,043. The Company in the same year (1619) instructed the Governor to see " that each town, borough, and hundred procured, by just means, a certain number of their children to be brought up in the first elements of literature ; and that the most towardly of them should be fitt c d for college, in the building which they proposed to pro- cure as soon as any profit arose from the estate appropriated to that use ; and earnestly required their utmost help and further- ance in that pious and important work." An individual, signing himself " Dust and Ashes," in 1621 donated £550 "to the erecting of some school, or some other way whereby some of ADDRESS HENRY BARNARD. 123 the children of the Virginians might be brought up in the Christian religion and good manners." * * * In all the New England States, following the example of England in the old educational foundations, Free Schools were first established in all the older and larger towns, which were invariably not what are now known as free schools — schools of gratuitous instruction, elementary common schools, supported by tax, and without any charge for tuition or fees, but gram- mar schools, and free originally in the sense of being exempt from any ecclesiastical supervision, or sometimes as liberal in the character of their instruction, and never actually free or gratuitous even to children of certain localities, or specified kinship to the founders. They were always endowed — support- ed practically by the rents of land, granted by the colonial or municipal authorities, or the income of bequests from beneficent individuals, but always exacting some payment in wood or money for the support of the teacher and incidental expenses. It is difficult for the present generation of teachers, pupils, and school officers, with our numerous and costly school edifi- ces, and their equipment for warmth, ventilation, and physical comfort, with our well-graded system of classes, books and teachers, with our normal schools, institutes, and associations for the training and improvement of teachers, with our well- endowed academies, high schools, colleges, and professional seminaries of every kind, to understand the limited educational resources with which the first century of our national existence opened and which continued to within tue last forty years. * # * * * * * From these references [to the school and college text books, and autographic remisincences by pupils and teachers, of " schools as they were " in all of the old thirteen states before 1800], it is evident that the school and the college were very different institutions then, and now, Their buudings, books, and teachers seem altogether insufficient to train the men and women who made the homes, farms, and workshops of the ante-Revolutionary period, achieved our independence, and framed the constitutions and laws under which our national and state governments were organized. And we must find in 124 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. other agencies — in the daily straggle for existence, in the obe- dience, industry, and sobriety of the family, in the teaching of the Sabbath and the study of the Bible, in the responsibilities of local magistracy and the discussions incident to town and colonial administration — in such agencies as these, combined with very narrow but thorough formal instruction, we must find the mental vigor, political wisdom, and general intelligence which enabled our ancestors to do their great work. The school in its best conditions, except as it trains the faculties, and gives the key to books, is subordinate to actual business, be it of head or hand, thoughtfully done. * * * In this, as well as in other portions of the great field of public administration, Washington, and the fathers of the republic, dis- played their far-reaching sagacity and patriotism. In his Fare- well Address to the People of the United States, he struck the key-note of all exhortation on this subject : " Promote, as one object of primary importance, institutions for the general dif- fusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a gov- ernment gives force to public opinion, it is essential that pub- lic opinion should be enlightened." In laying out the Federal City which now bears his name, under authority of Congress, among the squares reserved for public uses was one for a Na- tional University. In his first formal recommendations of spe- cial measures to the consideration of both Houses of Congress was " the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge in every country is the surest basis of public happiness." in a subsequent speech he distinctly recommends a National Univer- sity, as well as a Military Academy. " A primary object of such an institution, gathering its students from every portion of the country, should be instruction in the science of government." What changes in the civil and diplomatic service, and in the national feeling of the country, would have followed the estab- lishment of a National University at the Capitol, founded on Washington's suggestions, and under his administration, with its students " gathered from all parts of the country for the completion of their education in all branches of polite literature, in arts and sciences, in acquiring knowledge in the principles of politics and good government," escaping the local prejudices and. habitual jealousies of being brought up and always living within State lines, and in forming friendships in juvenile years with kindred spirits born under different social and geographi- cal relations! How much of misconception from non-acquain- tance, which gradually widens and deepens into open alienation, ADDRESS IIENRY BARNARD. 125 and finally, when fostered and inflamed by artfnl and ambitions demagogues, into violent antagonism, would have been avoided! bow strong but subtle, numerous yet almost unseen, would have been the ties which, knit in their academic walks, and strengthened in the generous competition of scholarship, and in the interchanged visits of each other's homes, and by corres- pondence, would have been interwoven into the domestic life and the public action of those graduates in the course of a cen- tury! How much the sentiment of nationality, the grateful feeling of being the recipients of the culture provided by a com- mon country, would have been fostered ! and how the public service, supplied, as it would have been, at least by all the ear- lier Presidents and heads of departments, from these graduates, trained in languages and sciences such as the public interests required, for its curriculum must have been moulded by public opinion, would have been elevated and rescued from the low personal and partisan purposes to which it has been de- graded ! Looked at from an educational point of view, and in connection with the immense scientific material which have been gradually gathered in the necessary operations of the government, such a University, with its own and the libraries, museums, and galleries, to which its professors and graduates could have had access for original research, and the endowments which, like those of Washington and Smithson, it would have received, would have been worthy of the name of Washington, and ranked now second to no other in this or any country. Benjamin Franklin, with all his other claims to the affection- ate remembrances of his countrymen, should be honored for his great services to popular education in the foundation of one of the earliest public libraries in the country, and in his plan of an Academy and an English School, which is now the Universi- ty of Pennsylvania. Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were the avowed advocates of education in its elementary as well as its higher forms, and devoted their time and estates to the foundation of schools and higher seminaries of learning. Mr. Adams was the author of the section in the first Constitution of Massachusetts (1780) relating to the encouragement of liter- ature and schools, which has since been incorporated substan- tially into the organic law of every State. Twenty of the last years of Mr. Jefferson's life were spent in labors to estab- lish a great institution of liberal culture ; and he will be remem- bered, with the Declaration of Independence, as the founder of the University of Virginia,. I wish I could give with precision the name of that great benefactor of American education who inserted in the first draft of the Ordinance of 1784 for disposing of lands in the Western 126 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Territory, the paragraph which reads as finally passed- " There shall be reserved the lot No. 16 of every township for the maintenance of public schools." This provision of 1785 was confirmed by the Ordinance of 1787, " for the government of the territory northward of the river Ohio," which also declared that " religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and other means of education shall be forever encouraged." Thus was incorporated into the land policy of the National Government an educational endowment, which, if it had been properly guarded and administered, would have increased with the ex- panding wants of each community, where these lands thus re- served were situated. Although sometimes neglected, and even misapplied, this magnificent endowment of over 70,000,000 acres of public lands, has started germs of educational institu- tions in more than one hundred thousand districts, and kept alive by its place in the constitution and laws of each of the States where the lands were situated, the obligation of legisla- tors to consider the educational interests of the people. To this generous provision for elementary schools by Congress should be added the endowment of higher seminaries— a College or University in each of the States in which public lands were situated, to the extent of nearly 2,000,000 acres. * * Various attempts have been made from time to time to nationalize the educational feature of the Land Policy of the National Government, so as to embrace all the States ; but it was not until 1862, after the persistent efforts of Hon. Justin M. Morrill, of Vermont, that public lands were donated to the several States and Territories, to provide Colleges for the bene- fit of Agriculture and Mechanic ArtV by which over 9,000,000 acres have already been set apart, and over forty institutions established or enlarged to realize the objects of the grant. In this direction reconstruction and reendowment could have been carried on promptly, liberally, and with universal accept- ance, if due regard had been had to the existing conditions of southern society. It is not too late now, although three gener- ations of children and youth have been swept beyond the reach of schools and colleges, since this work should have been begun, and made the problem of universal education moi'e dif- ficult. A noble example was set by Mr. George Peabody, and much good has been already done, and will continue to be done, by the mode in which his funds are applied, in stimulating local contributions, and helping sustain normal and model schools. But his benefaction, large as it is, is insignificant ; it should be at once a hundred, nay, a thousand-folded, to supply the edu- cational destitution of the States in which the old labor and ADDRESS HENRY BARNARD. 127 social systems have been not only broken up, but left the ground perfectly covered and obstructed with their ruins But not only are funds wanted, but agents and teachers, with local sympathies and knowledge, must be searched for, and trained in the spirit and methods of Oberlin. A hundred nor- mal seminaries, like those of Hampton Institute, should as early as practicable be established and aided by Congress, and a sys- tem of industrial schools, for whites and blacks, be at once organ- ized all over the country. Here is a field in which the largest public spiiit can find scope for the fullest exercise. Let all unite to do even tardy justice to this long neglected interest, and let Southern men and women be employed in the work of educating their own children, under such systems, and even without regard to systems as developed in other parts of the country, as shall be found practicable in their hands. "What we want, what these States and the whole country want, are schools, numerous and good enough to meet the pressing want of over one million of children and youth. Let us have as soon as possible a generation of adults educated in the ideas and ways of the new dispensation. * * * The old Bell, which has become historic from its association with the Hail in which the title deed of our liberties was signed, and that more august instrument, the Constitution of the United States, was framed, has long since done its work. It rang out the old, and rang in the new dispensation. But its proclama- tion of "Liberty throughout the land" which had come echoing down the centuries from the old Hebrew Commonwealth, took a prophetic significance in 1864 ; and now, on this centennial anniversary, ten thousand bells have quickened its still linger- ing vibrations and carried their inspiring tones into the hearts of millions which they never reached before ; and on each recurring anniversary let them all — Ring out tho old, ring in the new — Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife ; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out false pride in place and blood The civic slander and the spite: Ring in the law of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out the darkness of the land. — Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. THE GRAND MISSION OF AMERICA. AN ADDRESS BY REV. JOSEPH IT. TWITCIIELL, DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL, CELEBRATION AT HARTFORD, CONN., JULY 4th, 1876. This republic was ordained of God who has provided the conditions of the organization of the race into nations by the configuration of land and the interspaces of the sea. By these national organizations the culture and development of the race are secured. We believe that our nation is a creature of God — that he ordained it for an object, and we believe that we have eome comprehension of what that object is. He gave us the best results of the travail of ages past for an outfit, separating us from the circumstances that in the existing nations encum- bered these results, and sent us forth to do his will. We built on foundations already prepared a new building. Other men had labored and we entered upon their labors. God endowed and set us for a sign to testify the worth of men and the hope there is for man. And we are rejoicing to-day that in our first hundred years we seem to have measurably — measurably — ful- filled our Divine calling. It is not our national prosperity, great as it is, that is the appropriate theme of our most joyful congratulations, but it is our success in demonstrating that men are equal as God's children, which affords a prophecy of better things for the race. That is what our history as a lesson amounts to. There have been failures in particulars, but not on the whole ; though we fall short, yet still, on the whole, the outline of the lesson may be read clearly. The day of remembrance and of recollection is also the day of anticipation. We turn from look- ing back one hundred years to looking forward one hundred. It is well for some reasons to dwell upon to-day, but the proper compliment of our memories, reaching over generations, is hope reaching forward over a similar period of time. Dwelling on Ai)I)KESS REV. JOSEPH H. TWITCHELL. 129 to-day — filling our eyes with it — we can neither see far back nor far on. We are caught in the contemplation of evils that exist and that occupy us with a sense of what has not been done and of uupleasing aspects. True there are evils, but think what has been wrought in advancing the work of the grand mission of America. Do we doubt that the work is to go on ? N6 ! There are to be strifes and contending forces. But as out of strife has come progress, so will it be hereafter. Some things that we have not wanted, as well as some things that we have wanted have been done, yet on the whole the result is progress. It is God's way to bring better things by strife. (The speaker here alluded to the battle of Gettysburg, where he officiated as chaplain in the burial of the dead — the blue and the gray often in the same grave — and said that the only prayer that he could offer was "Thy will be done, thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." The republic is to continue on in the same general career it has hitherto followed. The same great truths its history has developed and realized in social and civil life are to still further emerge. The proposition that all men are created equal is to be still further demonstrated. Human rights are to be vin- dicated and set free from all that would deny them — Is any law that asserts the dignity of human nature to be abrogated ? Never. The Republic is to become a still brighter and brighter sign to the nations to show them the way to liberty. We have opened our doors to the oppressed. Are those doors to be closed ? No ; a thousand times no. We have given out an in- vitation to those who are held in the chains of wrong. Is that invitation to be recalled ? No, nevei\ The invitation has been accepted; and here the speaker alluded to the fact — which shows how homogenous we finally become as a nation, though heterogenous through immigration — that the Declaration of Independence is read here to-day by a man whose father was born in Ireland ; the national songs are sung by a man who was himself born in Ireland ; and the company of singers here, nearly all, were born in Germany. Then he passed to the sub- ject of Chinese education in this country and spoke of Yung Wing and his life-work, alluding to him as the representa- tive of the better thought and hope of China, and then paid 130 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. his respects to that part of the Cincinnati platform which alludes to this race. So long as he had voted he had given his support to this political p^rty whose convention was held at Cincinnati, but that platform wherein it seems on this point to verge toward un-American doctrine, he repudiated ; " I dis- own it ; I say woe to its policy ; I bescow my malediction upon it." Now, if there is any one here who will pay like respect to the platform of the other party the whole duty will be done. We are urged to-day in view of our calling, and of the fulfillment of the past to set our faces and hearts toward - the future in harmony and sympathy with the hope we are to realize. Let every man make it a personal duty and look within himself. God save the Eepublic ! May it stand in righteous- ness and mercy ; so only can it stand. If we forsake our calling, God will take away the crown He has given us. The kingdom of God will be taken from us and given to another nation which shall bring forth the fruits thereof. NEW HAVEN ONE HUNDRED YEAKS AGO. AN ORATION BY REV. LEONARD BACON, D, D. delivered at the centennial oelebltation, new haven, conn., july 4th, 1876. In the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-six, the fourth of July fell ou Thursday. On that day, the Continental congress at Philadelphia gave notice to all nations that the political communities which it represented had ceased to be colonies, were absolved from their allegiance to the British Crown, and had become Independent States. The news that such a Declaration had been made was not Hashed along: electric wires ; it was not conveyed by steam car or steam boat ; nor can I learn that it was sent in all directions by an extraor- dinary express. But we may assume that as early as Tuesday morning, July 9th, the people of New Haven heard the news, and that such news reported by neighbor to neighbor, w T as talked about everywhere, with every variet}^ of opinion as to whether the Independence that had been declared could be maintained ; some rejoicing in the Declaration and sure that it would stand ; others doubting ; here and there one indignant, but not daring to express his indignation. All knew that the decisive step had been taken, and that the country was com- mitted to a life and death struggle, not for the recovery of chartered and inherited rights as provinces included in the British empire, but for an independent nationality and a place among acknowledged sovereignties. It is difficiih for us to form in our minds any just conception of what New Haven was a hundred years ago. But let us make the attempt. At that time, the town ( f New Haven included East Haven, North Haven, Hainden, West Haven, and almost the entire territory of what are now the three towns of Wood- bridge, Beacon Falls and Bethany. What is now the cily of New Haven was then "the town plat" — the nine original squares 132 OUR NATIONAL JUBlLElL — with the surrounding fields and scattered dwellings, from the West river to the Quinnipiack, and between the harbor and the two sentinel cliffs which guard the beauty of the plain. Here was New Haven proper — the territorial parish of the First Ecclesiastical Society, all the outlying portions of the township having been set off into distinct parishes for church and school purposes. In other words, the town of New Haven, at that time was bounded on the east by Branford, on the north by Wallingford (which included Cheshire), on the west by Derby and Milford ; and all the " freemen" within those bounds were accustomed to assemble here in town meeting. A hundred years ago, there was a very pleasant village here at the " town-plat," though very little had been done to make it beautiful. This public square had been reserved, with a wise forethought for certain public uses ; but in the hundred and thirty-eight years that had passed since it was laid out by the proprietors who purchased these lands from the Indians, it had never been enclosed, nor planted with trees, nor graded ; for the people had always been too poor to do much for mere beauty. Here, at the centre of their public square, the planters of New Haven built a plain, rude bouse for public worship, and be- hind it they made their graves — thus giving to the spot a consecration that ought never to be forgotten. At the time which we are now endeavoring to recall, that central spot (almost identical with the site of what is now called Cen- tre church) had been reoccupied about eighteen years, by the 1 irick meeting-house of the First church; and the burying-ground, enclosed with a rude fence, but otherwise neglected, was still the only burial-place within the parochial limits of the First Ecclesi- i i ati< sal Society. A little south of the burying-ground, was anoth- er brick edifice, the state house, so called even while Connecticut was still a colony. "Where the North church now stands, there was a framed meeting-house, recently built by what was called the Fair Haven Society, a secession from the White Haven, whose house of worship (colloquially called "the old Blue Meeting- house") was on the corner now known as St. John Place. Be- side those three churches there was another from which Church street derives its name. That was pre-eminently "the church" — ORATION — KEV. LEONAKD BACON. 133 tnose who worshipped there would have resented the suggestion of its being a meeting-house. It was, in fact, a missionary sta- tion or outpost of the Church of England, and us such was served by a missionary of the English " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." The building, though of respect- able dimensions (58x88), was smaller than the others, yet it had one distinction, — its steeple — a few feet south of Cutler corner, and in full view from the Green, though somewhat less'aspirrng than the other three — was surmounted by the figure of a crown signifying that, whatever might be the doctrine or the sentiment elsewhere, there the king's ecclesiastical supremacy was acknow- ledged, and loyalty to his sacred person was a conspicious virtue* Only a few householders worshipped there, for the Church of England was an exetic in the climate of New England. Not till the Episcopal church had become (in consequence of the event which this day commemorates) an organization dependent on no king but Christ, an American church, and therefore no longer English, did it begin to strike its roots deep into the soil and to nourish as if it were indigenous. Two other public buildings adorned this " market-place ;" one a httle scho< >l-liouse just be- hind the Fair Haven meeting-house and not unlike the old-time wayside school-houses in the country ; the other a county jail, which was a wooden structure fronting on College street about hah way from Elm to Chapel. Beside ah these pubhc buildings, representative of religions of government and justice, and of provision by the common- wealth against popular ignorance, there was the college, then as now, the pride of New Haven, but very different then from what we now see. The college buildings at that time were only three. First there was the original college edifice, to which, at its com- pletion, in 4718, the name of Yale had been given in honor of a distinguished benefactor, and from which that name had been gradually, and at last authoritatively, transferee! to the institution which has made it famous. That original Yale College was close on the corner of College and Chapel streets, a wooden building, long and narrow, tluee stories high, with three entries, and cu- pola and clock. Next in age was the brick chapel with its tower and spire, the 134 OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. building now called the Athenseuni and lately transformed into recitation rooms. More glorious yet was the new brick college (then not ten years old), which had been named Connecticut Hall, and which remains (though not unchanged) the "Old South Middle." Such was New Haven, a hundred years ago, in its public buildings and institutions. Its population, within the present town limits was, at the largest estimate, not more than 1800 (including about 150 students) where there are now more than thirty times that number. If you ask, what were the people who lived here then, I may say that I remember some of them. Certainly they were, at least in outward manifestation, a religious people. Differences of religious judgment and sym- pathy had divided them, within less than- forty years, into three worshipping assemblies beside the little company that had gone over to the Church of England. Their religious zeal supported three ministers ; and I will venture to say that the houses were comparatively few in which there was not some form of household religion. Compared with other communities in that age (on either side of the ocean) they were an intelligent people. With few exceptions, they could read and write ; and though they had no daily newspapers, nor any knowledge of the modern sciences, nor any illumination frcm popular lectures, nor that sort of intelligence and refinement which comes from the theater, they knew some things as well as we do. They knew something about the chief end of man and man's respon- sibility to God ; something about their rights as freeborn sub- jects of their king ; something about their chartered freedom ; and the tradition had never died out among them. There were graves in the old burial ground which would not let them forget that a king may prove himself a traitor to his peopfe, and may be brought to account by the people whom he has betrayed. There were social distinctions then, as now. Some families were recognized as more intelligent and cultivated than others. Some were respected for their ancestry, if they had not disgraced it. Men in official* stations — civil, military, or ecclesiastical — were treated with a sort of formal deference now almost obso- lete ; but then, as now, a man, whatever title he might bear, ORATION — REV. LEONARD BACON. 135 was pretty sure to be estimated by his neighbors at his real worth, and nothing more. Some men were considered wealthy, others were depressed by poverty, but the distinction between rich unci poor was not just what it is to-day. There were ho great capitalists, nor was there anything like a class of mere laborers with no dependence but their daily wages. The aggregate wealth of the community was very moderate, with no overgrown fortunes and hardly anything like abject want. Almost every family was in that condition — " neither poverty nor riches " — which a wise man of old desired and prayed for as most helpful to right living. Such a community was not likely to break out into any turbulent or noisy demonstrations. Doubtless the Declaration of Independence was appreciated as a great fact by the people of New Haven when they heard of it. Perhaps the church bells w r ere rung (that would cost noth- ing) ; perhaps there was some shouting by men and boys (that would also cost nothing) : perhaps there was a bonfire on the Green or at the " Head of the Wharf " (that would not cost much) ; but we may be sure that the great fact was not greeted with the thunder of artillery nor celebrated with fireworks ; for gunpowder was just then too precious to be consumed in that way. The little newspaper, then published in this town every Wednesday, gives no indication of any popular excitement on that occasion. On " Wednesday, July 10th, 1776," the Connecti- cut Journal had news, much of it very important, and almost every word of it relating to the conflict between the colonies and the mother country ; news from London to the date of April 9 ; from Halifax to June 4 ; from Boston to July 4 ; from New York to July 8, and from Philadelphia to July 6. Under the Phila- delphia date the first item was " Yesterday the Congress unani- mously resolved to declare the United Colonies Free and Indepen- dent States." That was all, save that, in another column, the printer said, " To-morrow will be ready for salo 'The Resolves of the Congress declaring the United Colonies Free and Independent States.' '' What the printer, in that advertisement, called " The Resolves of Congress," was , a handbill, 8 inches by 9, in two columns, with a rudely ornamented border, and was reproduced iu the Journal for July IT. It was the immortal state paper 136 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. with which we are so familiar, and we may be sure that every- body in New Haven, old enough to know the meaning of it had read it, or heard it read, before another seven days had been counted. • The Declaration of Independence was not at all an unexpected event. It surprised nobody. Slowly but irresistibly the convic- tion had come that the only alternative before the United Colonies was absolute subjection to a British Parliament or absolute inde- pendence of the British crown. Such was the general convic- tion, but whether independence was possible, whether the time had come to strike for it, whether something might not yet be gained by remonstrance and negotiation, were questions on which there were different opinions even among men whose pa- triotism could not be reasonably doubted. [Here followed some of the facts intended to give a better understanding of " what were the thoughts, and what the hopes and fears of good men in New Haven a hundred years ago."] Having at last undertaken to wage war in defense of Ameri- can liberty, the Continental Congress proceeded, very naturally, to a formal declaration of war, setting forth the causes which impelled them to take up arms. That declaration preceded by a year the Declaration of Inde- pendence ; for at that time only a few sagacious minds had seen clearly the impossibility of reconciliation. Declaring to the world that they had taken up arms in self-defense and would never lay them down till hostilities should cease on the part of the aggressors, they nevertheless disavowed again the idea of separation from the British empire. " Necessity," said they, " has not yet driven us to that desperate measure ;" " we have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain and establishing independent states." That was an honest declaration. Doubtless a few prophetic souls had seen the vision of a separate and independent nationality, and knew to what issue the long controversy had been tending ; but the thought and sentiment of the people throughout the colonies, at that time — the thought and sentiment of thoughtful and patriotic men in every colony — was fairly expressed in that declaration. They were English colonies, proud of the ORATION REV. LEONARD BACON. 137 English blood and name ; and as young birds cling to the nest when the mother trusts them out half-fledged, so they clung to their connection with Great Britain not withstpn ding the un- motherly harshness of the mother country. TV;y were English as their fathers were ; and it was their English blood that roused them to resist the invasion of their English liberty. The meteor flag of England " Had braved a thousand years The battle and the breeze," and it was theirs ; its memories of Blenheim and Ramillies, of Crecy and Agincourt, were theirs ; and they themselves had helped to plant that famous banner on the ramparts of Louis- burg and Quebec. Because they were English they couid boast " That Chatham's language was their mother-tongue, And Wolfe's great name compatriot with their own." Because they were English, Milton was theirs, and Shakespeare, and the English Bible. They still desired to be included in the great empire whose navy commanded the ocean, and whose commerce encircled the globe. They desired to be under its protection, to share in its growth and glory, and enjoying their chartered freedom under the imperial crown, to maintain the closest relations of amity and mutual helpfulness with the mo- ther country and with every portion of the empire. All this was true in July, 1 775. When Washington consented to command the Continental armies " raised or to be raised," he thought that armed resistance might achieve some adequate security for the liberty of the colonies without achieving their independence. When, in his journey from Philadelphia to New York, hearing the news from Bunker Hill and how the New England volunteers had faced the British regulars in bat- tle, he said, " Thank God ! our cause is safe ;" he was not think- ing of independence, but only of chartered liberty. When, on his journey from New York to New Haven, he said to Dr. Ripley, of Green's Farms, who dined with him at Fair- field, " If we can maintain the war for a year we shall suc- ceed," his hopes was that by one year of unsuccessful war the British ministry and parliament would be brought to some reasonable terms of reconciliation. When (in the words of our 138 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. historian Palfrey), " the roll of the New England drums at Cam- bridge announced the presence there of the Virginian, George Washington," he knew not, nor did Putnam know, nor Prescott, nor Stark, nor the farmers who had hastened to the siege of Boston, that the war in which he then assumed the chief com- mand was, what we now call it, the war of independence. With all sincerity the Congress, four days later, while solemnly de- claring " before God and the world," " The arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unbating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties, being with one mind re- solved to die freeman rather than to live slaves " — could also say, at the same time, to their "friends and fellow subjects in every part of the empire," " We assure them that we mean not to dis- solve that union which has so long and so happily subsisted be- tween us, and which we sincerely wish to be restored." The declaration on the 6th of July, 1175, was a declaration of war, but not of independence. Yet, from the beginning of the war, there was in reality only one issue — though a whole year must pass before that issue could be clearly apprehended by the nation and procl limed to the world. From the first clash of arms the only possible result was either subjection or separation ; either the loss of liberty or the achievement of independence. The first shot from Major Pitcairn's pistol on the village green at Lexington, at the gray dawn of April 19th, 1775, was fatal to the connection between these colonies and their mother country. That was " the shot that echoed round the world," and is echoing still along " the corridors of time." That first shot, with the slaughter that fol- lowed and the resistance and repulse of the British soldiery that day at Concord, was felt by thousands who knew in a moment that it meant war in defense of chartered liberty, but did not yet know that, for colonies at war with their mother country, independence was the only possible liberty. As the war pro- ceeded, its meaning, and the question really at issue became evident. The organization of a Continental army, the expulsion of the king's regiments and the king's governor from Boston, the military operations in various parts of the country, the ORATION REV. LEONARD BACON. 139 collapse of the regal governments followed by the setting up of popular governments under the advice of the Continental Con- gress — what did such things mean but that the colonies must be thenceforward an independent nation or provinces conquered and enslaved ? It came, therefore, as a matter of course, that from the be- ginning of 18T6, the people in all the colonies began to be dis- tinctly aware that the war in progress was and could be nothing less than a war for independence. The fiction fundamental to the British Constitution, that the king can do no wrong, and that whatever wrong is done in his name is only the wrong- doing of his ministers, gave way before the harsh fact that they were at war, not with Parliament nor with Lord North, but with king George III. So palpable was the absurdity of profes- sing allegiance to a king who was waging war against them, that as early as April in that year, the Chief Justice of South Caro- lina under the new government just organized there, declared from his official seat in a charge to the grand jury, " The Almighty created America to be independent of Great Britain, let us beware of the impiety of being backward to act as in- struments in the Almighty hand now extended to accomplish His purpo'se." "When the public opinion of the colonies, north and south, was thus declaring itself, the time had come for action on the part of the Continental Congress. Accordingly on the 7th of June, Bichard Henry Lee, in behalf of the delegation from Virginia, proposed a resolution " that the united colonies are and ought to be free and independent states ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown ; and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved." It was agreed that the resolution should be considered the next day, and every member was enjoined to be present for that purpose. The next day's debate was earnest, for the Congress was by no means unanimous. Nobody denied or doubted that liberty and independence must stand or fall together, but some who had been leaders up to that point could not see that the time had come for such a declaration. Some were embarrassed by 140 OUB NATIONAL JUBILEE. instructions given the year before and not yet rescinded. Tho debate having been continued through the day (which was Saturday) was adjourned to Monday, June 10. On that day the resolution was adopted in committee of the who'e by a vote of seven colonies against five, and so was reported to the house. Hoping that unanimity might be gained by a little delay, the house postponed its final action for three weeks, but appointed a committee to prepare a formal declaration of independence. Meanwhile, though the sessions of the congress were always with closed doors, these proceedings were no secret, and public opinion was finding distinct and authentic expression. I need not tell what was done elsewhere ; but I may say what was done, just at that juncture, in our old commonwealth. On the 14th of June there came together at Hartford, in obe- dience to a call from Jonathan Trumbull, governor, "a Genera] Assembly of the Governor and Company of the English colony of Connecticut, in New England, in America " — the last that was to meet under that nauie. It put upon its record a clear though brief recital of the causes which had made an entire separation from Great Britain i-he oruy possible alternative of slavery, and then — what? Let me give the words of the record : fc Ap- pealing to that God who knows the secrets of all hearts lor the sincerity of former declarations of our desire to preserve our ancient and constitutional relation to that nation, and protesting solemnly against their oppression and injustice which have driven us from them, and compelled us to use such means as God in His providence hath put in our power for our necessary defence and preservation, Resolved, unanimously, by this Assembly, that the delegates of this colony in General Congress be and they are hereby instruct- ed to propose to that respectable body, to declare the United American colonies free and independent States, absolved from all allegiance to the King of Great Britain, and to give the as- sent of this colony to such declaration." It was amid such manifestations of the national will coming in from various quarters, that the Congress, on Monday, July 1, took up the postponed resolution declaring the colonies indepen- dent, discussed it again in committee of the whole and passed oration — rev. Leonard racon. 141 it, so bringing it back for a final decision. The vote in the house was postponed till the next day, and then, July 2, the resolution was adopted and entered on tut journal. In anticipation of this result, the formal Declaration of Independence had been report- ed by the special committee on the preceding Friday (June 28), and it was next taken up for consideration. After prolonged discussion in committee of the whole and various amendments (some of which were certainly changes for the better), it came before the house for final decision, and was then adopted, in the form in which we have heard it read to-day, the most illus- trious state paper in the history of nations. We may be sure, therefore, that whatever diversity of opinion there may have been in New Haven on the 4th of July, 1776, about the expediency of declaring independence at that time, news that such a declaration had been made by the Congress caused no great astonishment or excitement here. The General Assembly of Connecticut, had already made its declaration, and instructed its delegates in the Congress. One of those delegates was Roger Sherman (or as his neighbors called him, "Squire Sherman'') ; and nobody in this town, certainly, could be sur- prised to hear that the Continental Congress had done what Roger Sherman thought right and expedient to be done. The fact that Roger Sherman had been appointed on a committee to prepare the Declaration may have been unknown here, even in his own house ; but what he thought about the expediency of the measure was no secret. We, to-day, I will venture to affirm are more excited about the Declaration of Independence than they were to whom the news of it came, a hundred years ago. [Here followed a large number of records, or extracts from records, principally from the town clerk's office in New Haven, to show that our fathers on all proper public occasions were firmly, perhaps unconsciously, pursuing those steps which when taken by a brave and high-spirited people inevitably lead to their complete independence.] I have exhausted your patience, and must refrain from tracing even an outline of the war, as New Haven was concerned in it, after that memorable day a hundred years ago. Especially must I refrain from a description of the day when this town 142 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. was invaded and plundered, and was saved from conflagration only by the gallant resistance of its citizens keeping the enemy at bay till it was too late for him to do all he designed. The commemoration of that day will be more appropriate to its hundredth anniversary, July 4th, 1879. From the day of that invasion to this time, no footstep of an enemy in arms has pressed our soil — no roll of hostile drums or blare of hostile trumpet has wounded the air of beautiful New Haven. So may it be through all the centuries to come ! But before I sit down, I may yet say one word, suggested by what I have just been reading to you from the records of 1775. At the time of that conflict with Great Britain — first for muni- cipal freedom, and then for national independence as the only security of freedom, the people of these colonies, and eminently the people of New England, were, perhaps, in proportion to their numbers, the most warlike people in Christendom. From the day when Miles Stan dish, in the Pilgrim settlement at Ply- mouth, was chosen " Captain" and invested with " authority of command" in military affairs, every settlement had its military organization. The civil order, the ecclesiastical, and the mili- tary, were equally indispensable. In every town, the captain and the trained militia were as necessary as the pastor and the church, or the magistrate and the town meeting. When the founders of our fair city came to Quinnipiack, 238 years ago, they came not only with the leaders of their unformed civil state, Eaton and Good y ear — not only with their learned minis- ter of God's word, Davenport, to be the pastor of the church they were to organize — but also with their captain, Turner, who had been trained like Standish in the wars of the Dutch Re- public, and who in the Pequot war of the preceding year had seen the inviting beauty of the Quinnipiack bay and plain. "Who does not know how, in those early times, " Our grandsires bore their guns to meeting, Each man equip'd, on Sunday morn, With psalm-book, shot, and powder-horn," and that, in the arrangements of the house of worship, a place for " the soldiers," near the door, was as much a matter of course as the place for " the elders " at the other side of the building ? "Who does not know that every able-bodied man ORATION REV. LEONARD BACON. 143 (with few exceptions) was required to bear arms and to be trained in the use of them ? What need that I should tell how a vigorous military organization and the constant exhibition of readiness for self-defense, not less than justice and kindness in dealing with the Indians, were continually the indispensable condition of safety ? What need of my telling the story of King Philip's war, just two hundred years ago? Let it suffice to re- mind you of the long series of inter-colonial wars contempora- neous with every war between England and her hereditary en- emies, France and Spain — beginning in 1G89 and continued with now and then a few years' interruption till the final con- quest and surrender of the French dominion on this continent in 1762. It was in the last war of that long series that the military heroes of our war for independence had their training, and it was in the same war that the New England farmers and Virginia hunters, fighting under the same flag and under the same generals with British red-coats, learned how to face them without fear. That war which swept from our continent the Bourbon lillies and the Bourbon legions made us independent and enabled us, a few years later, to stand up as independent, and, in the ringing proclamation of July 4th, 1 770, to inform the world that where the English colonies had been struggling for existence, a nation had been born. Fellow citizens ! We have a goodly heritage — how came it to be ours ? God has given it to us. How ? By the hardships, the struggles, the self-denial, the manifold suffering of our fa- thers and predecessors on this soil ; by their labor and their valor, their conflicts with rude nature and with savage men ; by their blood shed freely in so many battles ; by their manly sagacity and the Divine instinct guiding them to build better than they knew. For us (in the Eternal Providence) were their hardships, their struggles, their sufferings, their heroic self- denials. For us were the cares that wearied them and their conflicts in behalf of liberty. For us were the hopes that cheered in labor and strengthened them in battle. For us — no not for us alone, but for our children too, and for the unborn generations. They who were here a hundred years ago, saw not what we see to-day (oh I that they could have seen it), but they 144 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. labored to win it for us, and for those who shall come after us. In this sense they entered into God's plan and became the min* isters of his beneficence to us. We bless their memory to-day and give glory to their God. He brought a vine out of Egypt when he brought hither the heroic fathers of New England. He planted it and has guarded it age after age. We are now dwelling for a little while under its shadow and partaking of its fruit. Others will soon be in our places, and the inheritance will be theirs. As the fathers lived not for themselves but for us, so we are living for those who will come after us. Be it ours so to live that they shall bless God for what we have wrought as the servants of his love ; and that age after age, till time shall end, may repeat our fathers' words of trust and of worship, Qui tkanstulit susteset. A CENTQRY OF SELF-GOVERNMENT. AN ORATION DELIVERED BY HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP, AT BOSTON, MASS., JULY 4, 1876. T Again find again, Mr. Mayor and Fellow Citizens, in years gone by, considerations or circumstances of some sort, public or private, — I know not what, — have prevented my acceptance of most kind and flattering invitations to deliver the Oration in in this my native city on the Fourth of July. On one of those occasions, long, long ago, I am said to have playfully replied to the Mayor of that period, that, if I lived to witness this Cen- tennial Anniversary, I would not refuse any service which might be required of me. That pledge has been recalled by others, if not remembered by myself, and by the grace of God I am here to-day to fulfil it. I have come at last in obedi- ence to your call, to add my name to the distinguished roll of those who have discharged this service in unbroken succession since the year 1783, when the date of a glorious act of patriots was substituted for that of a dastardly deed of hirelings, — the 4th of July for the 5th of March, — as a day of annual celebration by the people of Boston. In rising to redeem the promise thus inconsiderately given, I may be pardoned for not forgetting, at the outset, who presided over the Executive Council of Massachusetts when the Declara- tion, which has just been read, was first formally and solemnly proclaimed to the people, from the balcony of yonder Old State House, on the 18th of July, 177G ;* and whose privilege it was, amid the shoutings of the assembled multitude, the ringing of the bells, the salute of the surrounding forts, and the firing of thirteen volleys from thirteen successive divisions of the Con- tinental regiments, drawn up "in correspondence with the num- ber of the American States United," to invoke " Stability and * James Bowdoin. 146 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Perpetuity to American Independence ! God save our Ameri- can States ! " That invocation was not in vain. That wish, that prayer, h;is been graciously granted. We are here this day to thank God for it. We do thank God for it with all our hearts, and as- cribe to Him all the glory. And it would be unnatural if I did not feel a more than common satisfaction, that the privilege of giving expression to your emotions of joy and gratitude, at this hour, should have been assigned to the oldest living descendant of him by whom that invocation was uttered, and that prayer breathed up to Heaven. And if, indeed, in addition to this, — as you, Mr. Mayor, so kindly urged in originally inviting me, — the name I bear may serve in any sort as a link between the earliest settlement of New England, two centuries and a half ago, and the grand culmination of that settlement in the Centennial Epoch of American Independence, all the less may I be at liberty to express anything of the compunction or regret, which I can- not but sincerely feel, that so responsible and difficult a task had not been imposed upon some more sufficient, or certainly upon some younger man. Yet what can I say ? What can any one say, here or else- where, to-day, which shall either satisfy the expectations of others, or meet his own sense of the demands of such an occasion? For myself, certainly, the longer I have contemplated it, — the more deeply I have reflected on it, — so much the more hopeless I have become of finding myself able to give any adequate ex- pression to its full significance, its real sublimity and grandeur. A hundred -fold more than when John Adams wrote to his wife it would be so forever, it is an occasion for "shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other." Ovations rather than orations, are the order of such a day as this. Emotions like those which ought to fill, and which do fill, all our hearts, call for the swell- ing tones of a multitude, the cheers of a mighty crowd, and re- fuse to be uttered by any single human voice. The strongest phrases seem feeble and powerless ; the best results of historical research have the dryness of chaff and husks, and the richest ORATION — ROBERT c. WHSTTHROI\ 147 flowers of rhetoric, the drowsiness of " poppy or mandragora, in presence of the simplest statement of the grand consumma- tion we are here to celebrate : — A Century of Self-Government Completed ! A hundred years of Free Republican Institutions realized and rounded out ! An era of Popular Liberty, contin- ued and prolonged from generation to generation, until to-day it assumes its fall proportions, and asserts its rightful place, among the Ages ! It is a theme from which an Everett, a Choate, or even a Web- ster, might have shrunk. But those voices, alas ! were long ago hashed. It is a theme on which any one, living or dead, might have been glad to follow the precedent of those few incom- parable sentences at Gettysburg, on the 19th of November, 18G3, and forbear from all attempt at extended discourse. It is not for me, however, to copy that uniqae original, — nor yet to shelter myself under an example, which I should in vain aspire to equal. And, indeed, Fellow Citizens, some formal words must be spoken here to-day, — trite, familiar, commonplace words, though they may be ; — some words of commemoration ; some words of congratulation; some words of glory to God, and of acknowl- edgment to man ; some greatful looking* back ; some hopeful, trustful, lookings forward, — these, I am sensible, cannot be spared from our great assembly on this Centennial Day. You would not pardon me for omitting them. But where shall I begin ? To what specific subject shall I turn for refuge from the thousand thoughts which come crowding to one's mind and rushing to one's lips, all jealous of postponement all clamoring for utterance before our Festival shall close, and before this Centennial sun shall set? The single, simple Act which has made the Fourth of July memorable forever, — the mere scene of the Declaration,— would of itself and alone supply an ample subject for far more than the little hour which I may dare; to occupy ; and, though it has been described a hundred times before, in histories and address- es, and in countless magazines and journals, it imparatively de- mands something more than a cursory allusion here to-day, and challenges our attention as it never did before, and hardly ever can challenge it again. 148 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. II. Go back with me, tbeu, for a few moments at least, to that great Jefferson, year of our Lord, and that great day of American Liberty. Transport yourselves with me, in imagination, to Philadelphia. It will require but little effort for any of us to do so, for all our hearts are there already. Yes, we are all there, — from the At- lantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf, — we are all there, at this high noon of our Nation's Birthday, in that beauti- ful City of Brotherly Love, rejoicing in all her brilliant displays, and partaking in the full enjoyment of all her pageantry and pride. Certainly, the birthplace and the burial-place of Frank- lin are in cordial sympathy at this hour ; and a common senti- ment of congratulation and joy, leaping and vibrating from heart to heart, outstrips even the magic swiftness of magnetic wires. There are no chords of such elastic reach and such electric power as the heartstrings of a mighty Nation, touched and tuned, as all our heartstrings are to-day, to the sense of a common glory, — throbbing and thrilling with a common exul- tation. Go with me, then, I say, to Philadelphia ; — not to Philadel- phia, indeed, as she is at this moment, with all her bravery on, Avith all her beautiful garments around her, with all the graceful and generous contributions which so many other Cities and other St Mies and other Nations have sent for her adornment, — not forgetting those most graceful, most welcome, most touching contributions, in view of the precise character of the occasion, from Old England herself ; — but go with me to Philadelphia, as she was just a hundred years ago. Enter with me her noble Independence Hall, so happily restored and conse- crated afresh as the Runny mede of our Nation ; and, as we enter it, let us not forget to be grateful that no demands of pub- lic convenience or expediency have called for the demolition of that old State House of Pennsylvania. Observe and watch the movements, listen attentively to the words, look steadfastly at the countenances of the men who compose the little Congress assembled there. Braver, wiser, nobler men have never been gathered and grouped under a single roof, before or since, in any ORATION — ROBERT C. WINTUROP. 149 a^-e, on any soil beneath the sun. What are they doing ? What are they daring? Who are they, thus to do, and thus to dare? Single out with me, as you easily will at the first glance, by a presence and a stature not easily overlooked or mistaken, the young, ardent, accomplished Jefferson. He is < »nly just thirty- three years of age. Charming in conversation, ready and full in council, he is " slow of tongue," like the great Lawgiver of the Israelites, for any public discussion or formal discourse. But be has brought with him the reputation of wielding what John Adams well called " a masterly pen." And grandly has he justified that reputation. Grandly has he employed that pen already, in drafting a Paper which is at this moment lying on the table and awaiting its final signature and sanction. Three weeks before, indeed, — on the previous 7th of June, — his own noble colleague, Richard Henry Lee, had moved the Resolution, whose adoption, on the 2d of July, had virtually settled the whole question. Nothing, certainly, more explicit or emphatic could have been wanted for that Congress itself than that Resolution, setting forth as it did, in language of striking simplicity and brevity and dignity, " 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 connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." That Resolution was, indeed, not only comprehensive and con- clusive enough for the Congress which adopted it, but, I need not say, it is comprehensive and conclusive enough for us ; and I heartily wish, that, in the century to come, its reading might be substituted for that of the longer Declaration which has put the patience of our audiences to so severe a test for so many years past, — though, happily, not to-day. But the form in which that Resolution was to be announced and proclaimed to the people of the Colonies, and the reasons by which it was to be justified before the world, were at that time of intense interest and of momentous importance. No graver responsibility was ever devolved upon a young man of thirty-three, if, indeed, upon any man of any age, than that of preparing such a paper. As often as I have examined the orig- 150 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. inal draft of that Paper, still extant in the Archives of the State Department at Washington, and have observed how very few changes were made, or even suggested, by the illustrious men associated with its author on the committee for its preparation, it has seemed to me to be as marvelous a composition, of its kind and for its purpose, as the annals of mankind can show. The earliest honors of this day, certainly, may well be paid, here and throughout the country, to the young Virginian of " the masterly pen." And here, by the favor of a highly valued friend and fellow- citizen, to whom it was given by Jefferson himself a few months only before his death, I am privileged to hold in my hands, and to lift up to the eager gaze of you all, a most compact and con- venient little mahogany case, which bears this autograph inscrip- tion on its face, dated " Monticello, November 18, 1825 :" — " Thomas Jefferson gives this Writing Desk to Joseph Coolidge, Jun., as a memorial of his affection. It was made from a draw- ing of his own, by Ben Randall, Cabinet-maker of Philadelphia, with whom he first lodged on his arrival in that City in May, 177G, and is the indentical one on which he wrote the Declara- tion of Independence." " Politics, as well as Religion," the incription proceeds to say, " has its superstitions. These, gaining strength with time, may, one day, give imaginary value to this relic, for its association with the birth of the Great Charter of our Independence." Superstitions ! Imaginary value ! Not for an instant can we admit such ideas. The modesty of the writer has betrayed even "the masterly pen.". There is no imaginary value to this relic, and no superstition is required to render it as precious and priceless a piece of wood, as the secular cabinets of the world have ever possessed, or ever claimed to possess. No cabinet- maker on earth will have a more enduring name than this in- scription has secured to " Ben Randall, ol Philadelphia." No pen will have a wider or more lasting fame than his who wrote the inscription. The very table at Runnymede, which some of us have seen, on which the Magna Charta of England is said to have been signed or sealed five centuries and a half before, — even were it authenticated by the genuine autographs of every one ORATION — ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 151 of those brave old Barons, with Stephen Langton at their head, — who extorted its grand pledges and promises from Xing John, — so soon to be violated, — could hardly exceed, could hardlv equal, in interest and value, this little mahogany desk. What momentous issues for our country, and for mankind, were locked up in this narrow drawer, as night after night the rough notes of preparation for the Great Paper were laid aside for the revision of the morning ! To what anxious thoughts, to what careful study of words and phrases, to what cautious weighing of statements and arguments, to what deep and almost over- whelming impressions of responsibility, it must have been a witness! Long may it find its appropriate and appreciating ownership in the successive generations of a family, in which the blood ot Virginia and Massachusetts is so auspiciously com- mingled ! Should it, in the lapse of years, ever pass from the hands of those to whom it will be so precious an heirloom, it could only have its fit and final place among the choicest and most cherished treasures of the Nation, with whose Title Deeds of Independence it is so proudly associated! But the young Jefferson is not alone from Virginia, on the day we are celebrating, in the Hall which we have entered as imag- inary spectators of the scene. His venerated friend and old legal preceptor, — George Wythe, — is, indeed, temporarily absent from his side ; and even Richard Henry Lee, the original mover of the measure, and upon whom it might have devolved to draw up the Declaration, has been called home by dangerous illness in his family, and is not there to help him. But "the gay, good-humored '' Francis Lightfoot Lee, a younger brother, is there. Benjamin Harrison, the father of our late President Harrison, is there, and has just reported the Declaration from the Committee of the Whole, of which he was Chairman. The " mild and philanthropic " Carter Braxton is there, in the place of the lamented Peyton Randolph, the first President of the Continental Congress, who had died, to the sorrow of the whole country, six or seven months before. And the noble-hearted Thomas Nelson is there, — the largest subscriber to the generous relief sent from Virginia to Boston during the sore distress oc- casioned by the shutting up of our Port, and who was the mover 152 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. of those Instructions in the Convention of Virginia, passed on the 15th of May, under which Richard Henry Lee offered the original resolution of Independence, on the 7th of June. I am particular, Fellow Citizens, in giving to the Old Domin- ion the foremost place in this rapid survey of the Fourth of July, 177G, and in naming every one of her delegates who par- ticipated in that day's doings ; for it is hardly too much to say, that the destinies of our country, at that period, hung and hinged upon her action, and upon the action of her great and glorious sons. Without Virginia, as we must all acknowledge, without her Patrick Henry among the people, her Lees and Jefferson in the forum, and her Washington in the field, — I will not say, that the cause of American Liberty and American In- dependence must have been ultimately defeated, — no, no ; there was no ultimate defeat for that causa in the decrees of the Most High ! — but it must have been delayed, postponed, perplexed, and to many eyes and to many hearts rendered seemingly hope- less. It was Union which assured our Independence, and there could have been no Union without the influence and coopera- tion of that great leading Southern Colony. To-day, then, as we look back oVer the wide gulf of a century, we are ready and glad to forget every thing of alienation, every thing of contention and estrangement, which has intervened, and to hail her once more, as our Fathers in Faneuil Hall hailed her, in 1775, as " our noble, patriotic sister Colony, Virginia." I may not attempt, on this occasion, to speak with equal par- ticularity of all the other delegates whom we see assembled in that immortal Congress. Their names are all inscribed where they can never be obliterated, never be forgotten. Yet some others of them so challenge our attention and rivet our gaze, as we look in upon that old time-honored Hall, that I cannot pass to other topics without a brief allusion to them. III. Who can overlook or mistake the sturdy front of Roger Sher- shermanand man, whom we are proud to recall as a native of Mas- Hancock, gaclrusetts, though now a delegate from Connecticut, — that " Old Puritan," as John Adams well said, " as honest as ORATION HOBEET C. WINTHKOP. 153 an angel, and as firm in the cause of American Independence as Mount Atlas," represented most worthily to-day by the distin- guished Orator of the Centennial at Philadelphia, as well as by more than one distinguished grandson in our own State ? Who can overlook or mistake the stalwart figure of Samuel Chase, of Maryland, " of ardent passions, of strong mind, of do- mineering temper, of a turbulent and boisterous life," who had helped to burn in effigy the Maryland Stamp Distributor eleven years before, and who, we are told by one who knew what he was saying, " must ever be conspicuous in the catalogue of that Congress ? " His milder and more amiable colleague, Charles Carroll, was engaged at that moment in pressing the cause of Independence on the hesitating Convention of Maryland, at Annapolis ; and though, as we shall see, he signed the Declaration on the 2d of August, and outlived all his compeers on that roll of glory, he is missing from the illustrious band as we look in upon them this morning. I cannot but remember that it was my privilege to see and know that venerable person in my early manhood. Entering his drawing-room, nearly five-and-forty years ago, I found him reposing on a sofa and covered with a shawl, and was not even aware of his presence, so shrunk and shrivelled by the lapse of years was his originally feeble frame. Quot libras in duce summo ! But the little heap on the sofa was soon seen stirring, and, rousing himself from his mid-day nap, he rose and greeted me with a courtesy and grace which I can never forget. In the ninety-fifth year of his age, as he was, and within a few months of his death, it is not surprising that there should be little for me to recall of that interview, save his eager inquiries about James Madison, whom I had just visited at Montpelier, and his affectionate allusions to John Adams, who had gone be- fore him ; and save, too, the exceeding satisfaction for myself of having seen and pressed the hand of the last surviving signer of the Declaration. But Csesar Rodney, who had gone home on the same patriotic errand which had called Carroll to Maryland, had hajypily re- turned in season, and had come in, two days before, " in his boots and spurs," to give the casting vote for Delaware in favor of Independence. 154 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. And there is Arthur Middleton, of South Carolina, the bosom friend of our own Hancock, and who is associated with him under the same roof in those elegant hospitalities which helped to make men know and understand and trust each other. And with him you may see and almost hear the eloquent Edward Butledge, who not long before had united with John Adams and Kichard Henry Lee in urging on the several Colonies the great measure of establishing permanent governments at once for themselves, —a decisive step which we may not forget that South Carolina was among the very earliest in taking. She took it, however, with a reservation, and her delegates were not quite ready to vote for Independence, when it was first proposed. But Kichard Stockton, of New Jersey, must not be unmarked or unmentioned in our rapid survey, more especially as it is a matter of record that his original doubts about the measure, which he is now bravely supporting, had been dissipated and dispelled " by the irresistable and conclusive arguments of John Adams." And who requires to be reminded that our " Great Bostonian." Benjamin Franklin, is at his post to-day, representing his adopted Colony with less support than he could wish, — for Penn- sylvania, as well as New York, was sadly divided, and at times almost paralyzed by her divisions,-but with patriotism and firm- ness and prudence and sagacity and philosophy and wit and common-sense and courage enough to constitutue a whole dele- gation, and to represent a whole Colony, by himself! He is the last man of that whole glorious group of Fifty, — or it may have been one or two more, or one or two less, than fifty, — who re- quires to be pointed out, in order to be the observed of all ob- servers. But I must not stop here. It is fit, above all other things, that, while we do justice to the great actors in this scene from other Colonies, we should not overlook the delegates from our own Colony. It is fit, above all things, that we should recall something more than the names of the men who represented Massachusetts in that great Assembly, and who boldly affixed their signatures, in her behalf, to that immortal Instrument. Was there ever a more signal distinction vouchsafed to mor- ORATION ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 155 taJ man than that which was won and worn by John Hancock a hundred years ago to-day? Not altogether a great man ; not without some grave defects of character ; — we remember nothing at this hour save his Presidency of the Congress of the Declaration, and his bold and noble signature to our Magna Charta. Behold him in the chair which is still standing in its old place, — the very same chair in which "Washington was to sit, eleven years later, as President of the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States ; the very same chair, emblazoned on the bach of which Franklin was to descry " a rising and not a setting sun," when that Constitution had been finally adopted, — behold him, the young Boston merchant, not yet quite forty years of age, not only with a princely fortune at stake, but with a price at that moment on his own head, sitting there to-day in all the calm composure and dignity which so peculiarly characterized him, and which nothing seemed able to relax or ruffle. He had chanced to come on to the Congress during the previous year, just as Peyton Randolph had been compelled to relinquish his seat and go home, — returning only to die ; and, having been unexpectedly elected as his successor, he hesitated about taking his seat. But grand old Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia, we are told, was standing beside him, and with the ready good humor that loved a joke even in the Senate House, he seized the modest candidate in his athletic arms, and placed him in the presidential chair ; then, turning to some of the members around, he exclaimed : " We will show Mother Britain how little we care for her, by making a Massa- chusetts man our President, whom she has excludfc from par- don by a public proclamation." Behold him ! He has risen for a moment. He has put the question. The Declaration is adopted. It is already late in the evening, and all formal promulgation of the day's doings must be postponed. After a grace of three days, the air will be vibrating with the joyous tones of the Old Bell in the cupola over his head, proclaiming Liberty to all mankind, and with the responding acclamations of assembled multitudes. Meantime, for him, however, a simple but solemn duty remains to be dis- charged. The paper is before him. You may see the very 15G OUli NATIONAL JUBILEE. table on which it was laid, and the very inkstand which awaits his use. No hesitation now. lie dips his pen, and with au un- trembling hand proceeds to execute a signature, which would seem to have been studied in the schools, and practised in the counting-room, and shaped and modelled day by day in the correspondence of mercantile and political manhood, until it should be meet for the authentication of some immortal act ; and which, as Webstar grandly said, has made his name as im- perishable " as if it were written between Orion and the Plei- ades." Under that signature, with only the attestation of a secre- tary, the Declaration goes forth to the American people, to be printed in their journals, to be proclaimed in their streets, to be published from their pulpits, to be read at the head of their armies, to be incorporated forever in their history. The British forces, driven away from Boston, are now landing on Staten Island, and the reverses of Long Island are just awaiting us. They were met by the promulgation of this act of offence and d( fiance to all royal authority. But there was no individual responsibility for that act, save in the signature of John Han- cock, President, and Charles Thomson, Secretary. Not until the 2d of August was our young Boston merchant relieved from the perilous, the appalling grandeur of standing sole sponsor for the revolt of Thirteen Colonies and Three Millions of peo- ple. Sixteen or seventeen years before, as a very young man, he had made a visit to London, and was present at the burial of George II., and at the coronation of George III. He is now not only the Witness but the instrument, and in some sort the impersonation, of a far more substantial change of dynasty on his own soil, the burial of royalty under any and every title, and the coronation of a Sovereign, whose sceptre has already endured for a century, and whose sway has already embraced three times thirteen States, and more than thirteen times three million of people ! Ah, if his quaint, picturesque, charming old mansion-house, so long the gem of Beacon Street, could have stood till this day, our Centennial decorations and illuminations might haply have so marked, and sanctified, and glorified it, that the rage of ORATION— HOBERT C. WlNTHROP. 157 reconstruction would have passed over it still longer, and spared it for the reverent gaze of other generations. But his own name and fame are secure ; and, whatever may have been the foibles or faults of his later years, to-day we will remember that momentous and matchless signature, and him who made it, with nothing but respect, admiration and gratitude. IV. But Hancock, as I need not remind you, was not the only pro- Samuei and John scribed patriot who represented Massachusetts at Adams. Philadelphia on the day we are commemorating. His asssociate in General Gage's memorable exception from pardon is close at his side. He who, as a Harvard College student, in 1743, had maintained the affirmative of the Thesis, " Whether it be lawful to resist the Supreme Magistrate, if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be preserved," and who, during those whole three and thirty years since had been training up himself and train- ing up his fellow-countrymen in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and of Liberty ; — he who had replied to Gage's recom- mendation to him to make his peace with the King, " I trust I have long since made my peace with the King of Kings, and no personal considerations shall induce me to abandon the righteous cause of my country ; '' — he who had drawn up the Boston Instructions to her Representatives in the General Court, adopted at Faneuil Hall, on the 24th of May, 1764, — the earliest protest against the Stamp Act, and one of the grandest papers of our whole Revolutionary period ; — he who had insti- tuted and organized those Committees of Correspondence, with- out which we could have had no united counsels, no concerted action, no union, no success : — he who, after the massacre of March 5, 1770, had demanded so heroically the removal from Boston of the British regiments, ever afterwards known as " Sam. Adams's regiments," — telling the Governor to his face, with an emphasis and an eloquence which were hardly ever ex- ceeded since Demosthenes stood on the Bema, or Paul on Mars Hill, "If the Lieutenant-governor, or Colonel Dalrymple, or both together, have authority to remove one regiment, they have authority to remove two ; and nothing short of the total lt)S OITR NATIONAL JUBILEE. evacuation of the Town, by all the regular troops, will satisfy the public mind or preserve the peace of the Province ;" — he. " the Palinurus of the American Revolution," as Jefferson once called him, but — thank Heaven ! — a Palinurus who was never put to sleep at the helm, never thrown into* the sea, but who is still watching the compass and the stars, and steering the ship as she enters at last the haven he has so long yearned for : — the veteran Samuel Adams, — the disinterested, inflexible, incor- ruptible statesman, — is second to no one in that whole Con- gress, hardly second to any one in the whole thirteen Colonies. in his claim to the honors and grateful acknowledgements of this hour. We have just gladly hailed his statue on its way to the capitol. Nor must the name of Robert Treat Paine be forgotten among the five delegates of Massachusetts in that Hall of Inde- pendence, a hundred years ago to-day ; — an able lawyer, a learned judge, a just man ; connected by marriage, if I mistake not, Mr. Mayor, with your own gallant grandfather, General Cobb, and who himself inherited the blood and illustrated the virtues of the hero and statesman whose name he bore, — Ro- bert Treat, a most distinguished officer in King Philip's War, and afterwards a worthy Governor of Connecticut. And with him, too, is Elbridge Gerry, the very youngest member of the whole Continental Congress, just thirty-two years of age, — who had been one of the chosen friends of our proto-martyr, General Joseph Warren ; who was with Warren, at Watertown, the very last night before he fell at Bunker Hill, and into whose ear that heroic volunteer, had whispered those memorable words of presentiment, " Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori ;" who lived himself to serve his Commonwealth and the Nation, ardently and efficiently, at home and abroad, ever in accordance with his own patriotic injunction, — " It is the duty of every citizen, though he may have but one day to live, to de- vote that day to the service of his country," — and died on his way to his post as Vice-President of the United States. One more name is still to be pronounced. One more star of that little Massachusetts cluster is still to be observed an d noted. And it is one, which, on the precise occasion we commemorate, ORATION ROBERT 0. WINTHROf. 159 —one, which during those great days of June and July, 1776, on which the question of Independence was immediately dis- cussed and decided, — had hardly " a fellow in the firmament," and which was certainly " the bright, particular star" of our own constellation. You will all have anticipated me in naming John Adams. Beyond all doubt, his is the Massachusetts name most prominently associated with the immediate Day we celebrate. Others may have been earlier or more active than he in pre- paring the way. Others may have labored longer and more zealously to instruct the popular mind and inflame the popular heart for the great step which was now to be taken. Others may have been more ardent, as they unquestionably were more prominent, in the various stages of the struggle, against Writs of Assistance, and Stamp Acts, and Tea Taxes. But from the date of that marvelous letter of his to Nathan Webb, in 1755, when he was less than twenty years old, he seems to have fore- cast the destinies of this continent as few other men of any age, at that day, had done ; while from the moment at which the Continental Congress took the question of Independence fairly in hand, as a question to be decided and acted on, until they had brought it to its final issue, in the Declaration, his was the voice, above and before all other voices, which commanded the ears, convinced the minds, and inspired the hearts of his collea- gues, and triumphantly secured the result. I need not speak of him in other relations or in after years. His long life of varied and noble service to his country, in almost every sphere of public duty, domestic and foreign, be- longs to history ; and history has long ago taken it in charge. But the testimony which was borne to its grand efforts and ut- ter inces, by the author of the Declaration himself, can never be gainsaid, never be weakened, never be forgotten. That testi- mony, old as it is, familiar as it is, belongs to this day. John Adams will be remembered and honored for ever, in every true American heart, as the acknowledged Champion of Indepen- dence in the Continental Congress," — " coming out with a power which moved us from our seats," — our Colossus on the floor." And when we recall the circumstances ol kis death— iht ^*Ar, 160 our National Jubilee. the day, the hour, — and the last words upon his dying lips, " Independence forever," — who can help feeling that there was soine mysterious tie holding back his heroic spirit from the skies, until it should be set free amid the exulting shouts of his country's first National Jubilee ! But not his heroic spirit alone ! In this rapid survey of the men assembled at Philadelphia a hundred years ago to-day, I began with Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, and I end with John Adams, of Massachusetts ; and no one can hesitate to admit that, under God, they were the very alpha and omega of that day's doings, — the pen and the tongue, — the masterly author, and the no less masterly ad- vocate, of the Declaration. V. And now, my friends, what legend of ancient Rome or Greece The statesmen, or Egypt, what myth of prehistoric mythology, what story of Herodotus, or fable of iEsop, or metamorphosis of Ovid, would ha^e seemed more fabulous and mythical, — did it rest on any remote or doubtful traditions, and had not so many of us lived to be startled, and thrilled and awed by it, — than the fact, that these two men, under so many different circumstances and surroundings of age and constitution and climate, widely dis- tant from each other, living alike in quiet neighborhoods, remote from the smoke and stir of cities, and long before railroads or telegraphs had made any advances towards the annihilation or abridgement of space, should have been released to their rest and summoned to the skies, not only on the same day, but that day the Fourth of July, and that Fourth of July the . Fiftieth Anniversary of that great declaration which they had contended for and carried through so triumphantly side by side ! What an emphasis Jefferson would have given to his inscrip- tion on this little desk, — " Politics as well as Religion, has its superstitions," — could he have foreseen the close even of his own life, much more the simultaneous close of these two lives, on that Day of Days ! Oh, let me not admit the idea of super- stition ! Let me rather reverently say, as Webster said at the time in that magnificent Eulogy which left so little fur any one ORATION — EGBERT C. WINTHROP. 161 else to say as to tlie lives or deaths of Adams and Jefferson -. •• As their lives themselves were the gifts of Providence, who is not willing to recognize in their happy termination, as well as in their long continuance, proofs that our country and its bene- factors are objects of His care ? " And now another Fifty Years have passed away, and we are holding our high Centennial Festival ; and still that most striking, most impressive most memorable coincidence in all American history, or even in the authentic records of mankind, is without a visible monument anywhere ! In the interesting little city of Weimar, renowned as the resort and residence of more than one of the greatest philosophers and poets of Germany, many a traveller must have seen and admired the charming statues of Goethe and Schiller, standing side by side and hand in hand, on a single pedestal, and offering, as it were, the laurel wreath of literary priority or pre-eminence to each other. Few nobler works of art, in conception or execu- tion, can be found on the Continent of Europe. And what could be a worthier or juster commemoration of the marvelous coincidence of which I have just spoken, and of the men who were the subjects of it, and of the Declaration with which, alike in their lives ami in their deaths, they are so peculiarly and so signally associated, then just such a Monument, with the statues of Adams and Jefferson, side by side and hand in hand, upon the same base, pres. ing upon each other, in mutual acknowl- edgement and deference, the victor palm of a triumph for which they must ever be held in common and equal honor ! It would be a new tie between Massachusetts and Virginia. It would be a new bond of that Union which is the safety and the glory of both. It would be a new pledge of that restored good-will between the North and South, which is the herald and harbinger of a second Century of National Independence. It would be a fit recognition of the great Hand of God in our history ! At all events, it is one of the crying omissions and neglects which reproach us all this day, that " glorious old John Adams" is without any proportionate public monument in the State of which he was one of the very grandest citizens and sons, and 162 OtJR NATIONAL JUBILEE. in whose behalf he rendered such inestimable services to his country. It is almost ludicrous to look around and see who has been commemorated, and he neglected! He might be seen standing alone, as he knew so well how to stand alone in life. He might be seen grouped with his illustrious son, only second to himself in his claims on the omitted posthumous honors of his native State. Or, if the claim of noble women to such com- memorations were ever to be recognized on our soil, he might be lovingly grouped with that incomparable wife, from whom he was so often separated by public duties and personal dan- gers, and whose familiar correspondence with him, and his with her, furnishes a picture of fidelity and affection, and of patriotic zeal and courage and self-sacrifice, almost without a parallel in our Revolutionary Annals. But before all other statues, let us have those of Adams and Jefferson on a single block, as they stood together just a hun- dred years ago to-day, — as they were translated together just fifty years ago to-day : — foremost for Independence in their lives, and in their deaths not divided ! Next, certainly, to the completion of the National Monument to Washington, at the capital, this double statue of this " double star " of the Declar- ation calls for the contributions of a patriotic people. It would have something of special appropriateness as the first gift to that Boston Park, which is to date from tins Centennial Period. I have felt, Mr. Mayor and Fellow Citizens, as I am sure you all must feel, that the men who were gathered at Philadelphia a hundred years ago to-day, familiar as their names and then' story may be, to ourselves and to all the world, had an impera- tive claim to the first and highest honors of this Centennial Anni- versary. But, having paid these passing tributes to their mem- ory, I hasten to turn to considerations less purely personal. The Declaration has been adopted, and has been sent forth in a hundred journals, and on a thousand broadsides, to every camp and council-chamber, to every town and village and ham- let and fireside, throughout the colonies. What was it? What did it declare ? What was its rightful interpretation and inten- tions? Under what circumstances was it adopted? What did it accomplish for ourselves and for mankind ? ORATION — ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 1G3 A recent and powerful writer on " The growth of the Eng- lish Constitution," whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the Commencement of Old Cambridge University two years ago, says most strikingly and most justly : " There are certain great political documents, each of which forms a landmark in our political history. There is the Great Charter, the Petition of Eights, the Bill of Rights." " But not one of them," he adds, " gave itself out as the enactment of anything new. All claim- ed to set forth, with new strength, it might be, and with new clearness, those rights of Englishmen, which were already old." The same remark has more recently been incorporated into "A Short History of the English People." "In itself," says the writer of that admirable little volume, " the Charter was no novelty, nor did it claim to establish any new Constitutional principles. The Charter of Henry I. formed the basis of the whole ; and the additions to it are, for the most part, formal recognitions of the judicial and administrative changes intro- duced by Henry II." So, substantially, — so, almost precisely, — it may be said of the Great American Charter, which was drawn up by Thomas Jefferson on the precious little desk which lies before me. It made no pretensions to novelty. The men of 1776 were not in any sense, certainly not in any seditious sense, greedy of nov- elties, — "avidi novarum irrxim." They had claimed nothing new. They desired nothing new. Their old original rights as Englishmen were all that they sought to enjoy, and those they resolved to vindicate. It was the invasion and denia of those old rights of Enlishmen, which they resisted and revolted from. As our excellent fellow-citizen, Mr. Dana, so well said pub- licly at Lexington, last year, — and as we should all have been glad to have him in the way of repeating quietly in London, this year, — " We were not the Revolutionists. The King and Parliament were the Revolutionists. They were the radical in- novators. We were the conservators of existing institutions." No one has forgotten, or can ever forget, how early and how emphatically all this was admitted by some of the grandest statesmen and orators of England herself. It was the attempt to subvert our rights as Englishmen, which roused Chatham to 154 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. some of his most majestic efforts. It was the attempt to subvert our rights as Englishmen, which kindled Burke to not a few of his most brilliant utterances. It was the attempt to subvert our rights as Englishmen, which inspired Barre and Conway and Camden with appeals and arguments and phrases, which will keep their memories fresh when all else associated with them is forgotten. The names of all three of them, as you well know, have long been the cherished designations of American Towns. They all perceived and understood that we were contending for English rights, and against the violation of the great princi- ples of English liberty. Nay, not a few of them perceived and understood that we were fighting their battles as well as our own, and that the liberties of Englishmen upon their own soil were virtually involved in our cause and in our contest. There is a most notable letter of Josiah Quincy, Jr.'s, written from London at the end of 1 774,— a few months only before that young patriot returned to die so sadly within sight of his native shores, — in which he tells his wife, to whom he was not likely to write for any mere sensational effect, that " some of the first characters for understanding, integrity, and spirit," whom he had met in London, had used language of this sort : " This Nation is lost. Corruption and the influence of the Crown have led us into bondage, and a Standing Army has riveted our chains. To America only can we look for salvation. 'Tis America only can save England. Unite and persevere. You must prevail— you must triumph." Quincy was careful not to betray names, in a letter which might be intercepted before it reached its destina- tion. But we know the men with whom he had been brought into association by Franklin and other friends, — men like Shel- burne and Hartley and Pownall and Priestley and Brand Hollis and Sir George Saville, to say nothing of Burke and Chatham. The language was not lost upon us. We did unite and perse- vere. "We did prevail and triumph. And it is hardly too much to say that we did " save England." We saved her from her- self ; — saved her from being the successful instrument of over- throwing the rights of Englishmen ; — saved her "from the poisoned chalice which would have been commended to her own lips;" — saved her from "the bloody instructions which would ORATION ROBERT 0. WTNTHROP. 165 have returned to plague the inventor." Not only was it true, as Lord Macaulay said in one of his brilliant Essays, that "Eng- land was never so rich, so great, so formidable to foreign princes, so absolutely mistress of the seas, as since the alienation of her American Colonies;" but it is not less true that England came out of that contest with new and larger views of Liberty; with a broader and deeper sense of what was due to human rights ; and with an experience of incalculable value to her in the man- agement of the vast Colonial System which remained, or was iu store, for her. A vast and gigantic Colonial System, beyond all doubt, it has proved to be ! She was just entering, a hundred years ago, on that wonderful career of conquest in the East, which was to compensate her, — if it were a compensation, — for her impend- ing losses in the West. Her gallant Cornwallis was soon to receive the jewelled Sword of Tippoo Saib at Bangalore, in ex- change for that which he was now destined to surrender to Washington at Yorktown. It is certainly not among the least striking coincidences of our Centennial Year, that, at the very moment when we are celebrating the event which stripped Great Britain of thirteen Colonies and three millions of sub- jects, — now grown into thirty-eight States and more than forty millions of people, — she is welcoming the return of her amiable and genial Prince from a royal progress through the wide- spread regions of " Ormus and of Ind," bringing back, to lay at the foot of the British throne, the homage of nine principal Provinces and a hundred and forty-eight feudatory States, and of not less than two hundred and forty millions of people, from Ceylon to the Himalayas, and affording ample justification for the Queen's new title of Empress of India ! Among all the parallelisms of modern history, there are few more striking and impressive than this. The American Colonies never quarrelled or cavilled about the titles of their Sovereign. If, as has been said, " they went to war about a preamble," it was not about the preamble of the royal name. It was the Imperial power, the more than Im- perial pretensions and usurpations, which drove them to rebel- lion. The Declaration was, in its own terms, a personal and xbb OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. most stringent arraignment of the King. It could have been nothing else. George TIL was to us the sole responsible instru- ment of oppression. Parliament had, indeed, sustained him ; but the Colonies had never admitted the authority of a Parlia- ment in which they had no representation. There is no pas- sage in Mr. Jefferson's paper more carefully or more felicitously worded than that in which he says of the Sovereign, that "he has combined with oilier* to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitu'ions and unacknowledged by our laws, — giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation" A slip of " the masterly pen'' on this point might have cost us our consistency ; but that pen was on its guard, and this is the only allusion to Lords or Commons. We could recognize no one but the Mon- arch. We could contend with nothing less than Royalty. We could separate ourselves only from the Crown. English prece- dents had abundantly taught us that kings were not beyond the reach of arraignment and indictment ; and arraignment and indictment were then our only means of justifying our cause to ourselves and to the world. Yes ; harsh, severe, stinging, scold- ing, — J had almost said, — as that long series of allegations and accusations may sound, and certainly does sound, as we read it, or listen to it, in cold blood, a century after the issues are all happily settled, it was a temperate and a dignified utterance, under the circumstances of the case, and breathed quite enough of moderation to be relished or accepted by those who were bearing the brunt of so terrible a struggle for life and liberty and all that was dear to them, as that which those issues in- volved. Nor in all that bitter indictment is there a single count which does not refer to, and rest upon, some violation of the rights of Englishmen, or some violation of the rights of hu- manity. We stand by the Declaration, to-day and always, and disavow nothing of its reasoning or its rhetoric. And, after all, Jefferson was not a whit more severe on the King than Chatham had been on the King's Ministers sis months before, when he told them to their faces : "The whole of your political conduct has been one continued series of weak- ness, temerity, despotism, ignorance, futility, negligence, blun- dering, and the most notorious servility, incapacity and corrup- ORATION — ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 16T tion." Nor was William Pitt, the younger, much more mea- sured in his language, at a later period of our struggle, when he declared : "These Ministers will destroy the empire they were called upon to save, before the indignation of a great and suffering people can fall upon their heads in the punishment which they deserve. I affirm the war to have been a most ac- cursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and dia- bolical war." I need not say, Fellow Citizens, that we are here to indulge in no reproaches upon Old England to-day, as we look back from the lofty heights of a Century of Independence on the course of events which severed us from her dominions. We are by no means in the mood to re-open the adjudications of Ghent or of Geneva ; nor can we allow the ties of old traditions to be seriously jarred, on such an occasion as this, by any recent fail- ures of extraditions, however vexatious or provoking. But, cer- tainly, resentments on either side, for any thing said or done during our Eevolutionary period, — after such a lapse of time, would dishonor the hearts which cherished them, and the tongues which uttered them. Who wonders that George the Third would not let such Colonies as ours go without a struggle ? They were the brightest jewels of his crown. Who wonders that he shrunk from the responsibility of such a dismemberment of his empire, and that his brain reeled at the very thought of it ? It would have been a poor compliment to us, had he not con- sidered us worth holding at any and every cost. We should hardly have forgiven him, had he not desired to retain us. Nor can we altogether wonder that with the views of kingly prerog_ ative which belonged to that period, and in which he was edu- cated, he should have preferred the policy of coercion to that of conciliation, and should have insisted on sending over troops to subdue us. Our old Mother Country has had, indeed, a peculiar destiny and in many respects a glorious one. Not alone with her drum beat, as Webster so grandly said, has she encircled the earth. Not alone with her martial airs has she kept company with the hours. She has carried civilization and Christianity wherever she has carried her flag. She has carried her noble tongue, 168 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. with all its incomparable treasures of literature and science and religion, around the globe ; and, with our aid, — for she will con- fess that we are doing our full part in this line of extension, — it is fast becoming the most pervading speech of civilized man. We thank God at this hour, and at every hour, that " Chatham's language is our mother tongue," and that we have an inherited and an indisputable share in the glory of so many of the great names by which that language has been illustrated and adorned. But she has done more than all this. She has planted the groat institutions and principles of civil freedom in every lati- tude where she could find a foothold. From her our Kevolu- tionary Fathers learned to understand and value them, and from her they inherited the spirit to defend them. Not in vain had her brave barons extorted Magna Charta from King John. Not in vain had her Simon de Montfort summoned the knights and burgesses, and laid the foundations of a Parliament and a Housa of Commons. Not in vain had her noble Sir John Eliot died as the martyr of free speech in the tower. Not in vain had her heroic Hampden resisted ship-money, and died on the battle- field. Not in vain for us, certainly, the great examples and the great warnings of Cromwell, and the Commonwealth, or those sadder ones of Sidney and Russell, or that later and more glorious one still of William of Orange. The grand lessons of her own history, forgotten, overlooked, or resolutely disregarded, it may be, on her own side of the Atlantic, in the days we are commemorating, were the very in- spiration of her Colonies on this side; and under that inspiration they contended and conquered. And though she may some- times be almost tempted to take sadly upon her lips the words of the old prophet, — " I have nourished and brought up child- dren, and they have rebelled against me," — she has long ago learned that such a rebellion as ours was really in her own interest, and for her own ultimate welfare; begun, continued, and ended, as it was, in vindication of the liberties of English- men. I cannot forget how justly and eloquently my friend, Dr. Ellis, a few months ago, in this same hall, gave expression to ORATION— ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 169 the respect which is so widely entertained on this side of the Atlantic for the Sovereign Lady who has now graced the British throne for nearly forty years. No passage of his admirable Oration elicited a warmer response from the multitudes who listened to him. How much of the growth and grandeur of Great Britian is associated with the names of illustrious women! Even those of us who have no fancy for female suffrage might often be well-nigh tempted to take refuge, from the incompe- tencies and intrigues and corruptions of men, under the presi- dency of the purer and gentler sex. What would English history be without the names of Elizabeth and Anne ! What would it be without the name of Victoria, — of whom it has recently been written, " that, by a long course of loyal acquies- cence in the declared wishes of her people, she has brought about what is nothing less than a great revolution, — all the more beneficent because it has been gradual and silent ! " Ever honored be her name, and that of her lamented consort ! " Ever beloved and loving may her rule be; And when old Time shall lead her to her end, Goodness and she fill up one monument! " The Declaration is adopted and promulgated; but we may not forget how long and how serious a reluctance there had been to take the irrevocable step. As late as September, 1774, Washington had publicly declared his belief that Independence " was wished by no thinking man." As late as the 6th of March, 1775, in his memorable Oration in the Old South, with all the associations of " the Boston Massacre " fresh in his heart, Warren had declared that " Independence was not our aim." As late as July, 1775, the letter of the Continental Con- gress to the Lord Mayor and Corporation of London had said: "North America, my Lord, wishes most ardently for a lasting connection with Great Britian, on terms of just and equal liberty;" and a simultaneous humble petition to the King ? signed by every member of the Congress, reiterated the same assurance. And as late as the 25th of August, 1775, Jefferson - himself, in a letter to the John Randolph of that day, speaking of those who " still wish for reunion with their parent country," says most emphatically, " I am one of those; and would rather 170 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. be in dependence on Great Britian, properly limited, than on any nation on earth; or than on no nation." Not all the blood of Lexington, and Concord, and Bunker Hill, crying from the ground long before these words were written, had extinguished the wish for reconciliation and reunion even in the heart of the very author of the Declaration. Tell me not, tell me not, that there was any thing of equivo- cation, any thing of hypocrisy, in these and a hundred other similar expressions which might be cited. The truest human hearts are full of such inconsistency and hypocrisy as that. The dearest friends, the tenderest relatives, are never more over- flowing and outpouring, nor ever more sincere, in feelings and expressions of devotion and love, than when called to contem- plate some terrible impending necessity of final separation and divorce. The ties between us and Old England could not be sundered without sadness, and sadness on both sides of the ocean. Franklin, albeit his eyes were " unused to the melting mood," is recorded to have wept as he left England, in view of the inevitable result of which he was coming home to be a witness and an instrument ; and I have heard from the poet Rogers's own lips, what man of you may have read in his Table-Talk, how deeply he was impressed, as a boy, by his father's putting on a mourning suit, when he heard of the first shedding of American blood. Nor could it, in the nature of things, have been only their warm and undoubted attachment to England, which made so many of the men of 177G reluctant to the last to cross the Rubicon. They saw clearly before them, they could not help seeing, the full proportions, the tremendous odds, of the contest into which the Colonies must be plunged by such a step. Think you that no apprehensions and anxieties weighed heavily on the minds and hearts of those far-seeing men ? Think you that as their names were called on the day we commemoi'ate, beginning with Josiah Bartlett, of New Hampshire, — or as, one by one, they approached the Secretary's desk on the following 2d of August, to write their names on that now hallowed parchment,— they did not realize the full responsibility, and the full risk to their country and to themselves, which such a vote and such a signa- ORATION ROBERT 0. WINTHROP. 171 tare iuvolved ? They sat, indeed, with closed doors ; and it is only from traditions or eaves-droppings, or from the casual expressions of diaries or letters, that we catch glimpses of what was done, or gleanings of what was said. But how full of import are some of those glimpses and gleanings ! "Will you sign?" said Hancock to Charles Carroll, who, as we have seen, had not been present on the 4th of July. " Most willingly," was the reply. "There goes two millions with a clash of the pen," says one of those standing by ; while another remarks, "Oh, Carroll, you will get off, there are so many Charles Carrolls." And then we may see him stepping back to the desk, ami putting that addition — "of Carrollton'' — to his name, which will designate him for ever, and be a prouder title of nobility than those in the peerage of Great Britain which were afterwards adorned by his accomplished and fascinating rable and dreadful than Civil War ! How unspeak- ably glorious it wovdd have been for us this day could the Great Emancipation have been concerted, arranged, and ulti- mately effected without violence or bloodshed, as a simple and sublime act of philanthropy and justice! But it was not in the Divine economy that so huge an origi- nal wrong should be righted by any easy process. The decree seemed to have gone forth from the very registries of Heaven : " Cuncta priue tentanda, sed immedicabile vulnus Ense reddendum est." The immedicable wound must be cut away by the sword ! Again and again, as that terrible war went on, we might almost li)2 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. hear voices crying out, in the words of the old prophet : " O, thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet ? Put up thyself into thy scabbard ; rest, and be still !" "But the answering voice seemed not less audible : " How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge?" And the war went on,— bravely fought on both sides, as we all know, — until, as one of its necessities, Slavery was abolished. It fell at last under that right of war to abolish it, which the late John Quincy Adams had been the first to announce, in the way of warning, more than twenty years before, in my own hearing, on the floor of Congress, while I was your Representa- tive. I remember well the burst of indignation and derision with which that warning was received. No prediction of Cas^ sandra was ever more scorned than his, and he .did not live to witness its verification. But whoever else may have been more immediately and personally instrumental in the final result, — the brave soldiers who fought the battles, or the gallant gene- rals who led them, — the devoted philanthropists, or the ardent statesmen, who, in season and out of season, labored for it, — the Martyr-President who proclaimed it, — the true story of Emancipation can never be fairly and fully told without the "old man eloquent," who died beneath the roof of the Capitol nearly thirty years ago, being recognized as one of the leading figures of the narrative. But', thanks be to God, who overrules every thing for good, that great event", the greatest of our American Age, — great enough, alone and by itself, to give a name and a'character to any Age, — has been accomplished ; and, by His blessing, we present our country to the world tins day -without a slave, white or black, upon its soil ! Thanks be to God, not only that our be- loved Union has been saved, l3ut that it has been made both easier to save, and better worth saving, hereafter, by the final solution of a problem, before which all human wisdom had stood aghast and confounded for so many generations ! Thanks be to God, and to Him be all the praise and the glory, we can read the great words of the Declaration, on this Centemiial Anniver- sary, without reservation or evasion : " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that ORATION — ROBERT C. WIXTKROP. 193 among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The legend on that new colossal Pharos, at Long Island, may now indeed be, " Liberty enlightening the World I" VI. We come, then, to-day. Fellow Citizens, with hearts full of Duties of the gratitude to God and mar:, to pass down our country Future. a.nd its institutions, not wholly without scars and blemishes upon their front, — not without shadows on the past and clouds on the future, — but freed for ever from at least one great stain, and firmly rooted in the love and loyalty of a United People, — to the generations which are to succeed us. And what shall we say to those succeeding generations, as we commit the sacred trust to their keeping and guardianship ! If I could hope, without presumption, that any humble coun- sels of mine, on this hallowed Anniversary, could be remem- bered beyond the hour of their utterance, and reach the ears of my countrymen in future days ; if I could borrow " the masterly pen" of Jefferson, and produce words which should partake of the immortality of those which he wrote on this little desk ; if I could command the matchless tongue of John Adams, when he poured out appeals and arguments which moved men from their seats, and settled the destinies of a nation ; if I could catch but a single spark of those electric fires which Franklin wrested from the skies, and flash down a phrase, a word, a thought, along the magic chords which stretch across the ocean of the future, what could I, what would I, say ? I could not omit, certainly, to reiterate the solemn obligations which rest on every citizen of this Republic to cherish and en- force the great principles of our Colonial and Revolutionary Fathers, — the principles of Liberty and Law, one and inseparable — the principles of the Constitution and the Union. I could not omit to urge on every man to remember that self- government politically can only be successful, if it be accom- panied by self-government personally; that there must be government somewhere; and that, if the people are indeed to be sovereigns, they must exercise their sovereignty over them- selves individually, as well as over themselves in the aggregate, — regulating their own lives, resisting their own temptations, 194 OtJR NATIONAL JUBILEE. subduing their own passions, and voluntarily imposing upon them- selves some measure of that restraint and discipline, which, under other systems, is supplied from the armories of arbitrary power, — the disci] »line of virtue, in the place of the- discipline of slavery. I could not omit to caution them against the corrupting influ- ences of intemperance, extravagance and luxury. I could m>t omit to warn them against political intrigue, as well as against personal licentiousness; and to implore them to regard, principle and character, rather than mere party allegiance, in the choice of men to rule over them. I could not omit to call upon them to foster and further the cause of universal Education; to give a liberal support to our Schools and Colleges; to promote the advancement of Science and of Art, in all their multiplied divisions and relations; and to encourage and sustain all those noble institutions of Charity, which, in our own land above all others, have given the crown- ing grace and glory to modern civilization. I could not refrain from pressing upon them a just and generous consideration for the interests and the rights of their fellow-men every where, and an earnest effort to promote Peace and Good Will among the Nations of the earth. I could not refrain from reminding them of the shame, the unspeakable shame and ignominy, which would attach to those who should show themselves unable to uphold the glorious Fabric of Self -Government which had been founded for them at such a cost by their Fathers; — " Videte, videte, ne, ut Mis pvlcherrimum fuit iantam vobis imperii gloriam re/inquere, sic vobis turpissimum sit, illud quod accepistis, iueri et conservare non posse! " And surely, most surely, I could not fail to invoke them to imitate and emulate the examples of virtue and purity and patriotism, which the great founders of our Colonies and of our Nation had so abundantly left them. VII. But could I stop there ? Could I hold out to them, as the what are great results of a long life of observation and experience, men? nothing but the principles and examples of great men? Who and what are great men? " Woe to the country," said Metternich to our own Ticknor, forty years ago, " whose con- ORATION ROBERT 0. WINTHROP. 195 dition and institutions no longer produce great men to manage its affairs." The wily Austrian applied bis remark to England at that day: but his woe — if it be a woe — would have a wider range in our time, and leave hardly any land unreached. Certainly we hear it now-a-days, at every turn, that never before has there been so striking a disproportion between supply and demand, as at this moment, the world over, in the commodity of great men. But who, and what, are great men? " And now stand forth," says an eminent Swiss historian, who had completed a survey of the whole history of mankind, at the very moment when, as he says, "a blaze of freedom is just bursting forth beyond the ocean," — " And now stand forth, ye gigantic forme, shades of the first Chieftains, and sons of Gods, wdio glimmer among the rocky halls and mountain fortresses of the ancient world; and you Conquerors of the world from Babylon and from Macedonia; ye Dynasties of Ctesars, of Huns, Arabs, Moguls and Tartars; ye Commanders of the Faithful on the Tigris, and Commanders of the Faithful on the Tiber; you hoary Counsellors of Kings, and Peers of Sovereigns; Warriors on the car of triumph, covered with scars, and crowned with laurels; ye long rows of Consuls and Dictators, famed for your lofty minds, your unshaken constancy, your ungovernable spirit; — stand forth, and let us survey for a while your- assembly, like a Council of the Gods ! What were ye ? The first among mortals ? Sel- dom can you claim that title ! The best of men? Still fewer of you have deserved such praise ! Were ye the Compellers, the in- stigators of the human race, the prime movers of aU their works ? Bather let us say that you were the instruments, that you were the wheels, by whose means the Invisible Being has conducted the incomprehensible fabric of universal government across the ocean of time ! " Instruments and wheels of the Invisible Governor of the Uni- verse! This is indeed all which the greatest of men ever have been or ever can be. No flatteries of courtiers; no adu- lations of the multitude; no audacity of self-reliance; no intox- ications of succes; no evolutions or developments of science, — can make more or other of them. This is " the sea-mark of their utmost sail," — the goal of their farthest run, — the very round and top of their highest soaring. 196 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Oh, if there could be, to-day, a deeper and more pervading impression of this great truth throughout our land, and a more prevailing conformity of our thoughts and words and acts to the lessons which it involves, — if we could lift ourselves to a loftier sense of our relations to the Invisible, — if, in surveying our past history, we could catch larger and more exalted views of our destinies and our responsibilities, — if we could realize that the want of good men may be a heavier woe to a land than any want of what the world calls great men, — our Centennial Year would not only be signalized by splendid ceremonials and magnificent commemmorations and gorgeous expositions, but it would go far towards fulfilling something of the grandeur of that " Acceptable Year " which was announced by higher than human lips, and would be the auspicious promise and pledge of a glorious second century of Independence and Freedom for our country ! For, if that second century of self-government is to go on safely to its close, or is to go on safely and prosperously at all, there must be some renewal of that old spirit of subordination and obedience to Divine, as well as human, Laws, which has been our security in the past. There must be faith in some- thing higher and better than ourselves. There must be a rev- erent acknowledgment of an Unseen, but All-seeing, All-con- trolling, Ruler of the Universe. His Word, His Day, His House, His Worship, must be sacred to our children, as they have been to their fathers; and His blessing must never fail to be invoked upon our land and upon our liberties. The patriot voice, which cried from the balcony of yonder Old State House, when the Declaration had been originally proclaimed," Stability and Per- petuity to American Independence," did not fail to add, " God save our American States." I would prolong that ancestral prayer. And the last phrase to pass my lips at this hour, and to take its chance for remembrance or oblivion in years to come, as the conclusion of this Centennial Oration, and as the sum, and summing up, of all I can say to the present or the fu- ture, shall be: — There is, there can be, no Independence of God: In Him, as a Nation, no less than in Him, as individuals, " we live, and move, and have our being ! " God save our Ameri- can States! THE PROGRESS OF LIBERTY, AN ORATION BY HON. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. delivered at the centennial celebration in taunton, mass., july 4th, 1876. I salute you, my fellow-countrymen, with a cheer of welcome on this joyous day, when forty millions of human voices rise up •with one accord to heaven, in grateful benisons for the mercies showered on three successive generations of the race, by the Great Disposer of events, during the hundred years that have passed away. Tec far be it from us to glory in this anniversary festival with any spirit of ostentation, as if assuming to be the very elect of Grod's creatures. Let us rather join in humble but earnest supplication for the continuance of that support froni aloft by reason of which a small and weak and scattered band have been permitted so to grow into strength as now to com- mand a recognized position among the leading powers of the earth. Less than three centuries since, the European explorer first set his foot on these northern shores, with a view to occupation. He found a primitive race aspiring scarcely higher than to the common enjoyment of animal existence, and slow to respond to any nobler call. How long they had continued in the same con- dition there was little evidence to determine. But enough has been since gathered to justify the belief that advance never could have been one of their attributes. Without forecast, and in- sensible to ambition, after long experience and earnest effort to elevate them, the experiment of civilization must be admitted to have failed. The North American Indian never could have im- proved the state he was in when first found here. He must be regarded merely as the symbol of continuous negation, of the everlasting rotation of the present, not profiting by the experi- ence of the past, and feebly sensible of the possibilities of the future. 198 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. The European had at last come in upon him, and the scene began at once to change. The magnificence of nature presented to his view, to which the native had been blind, at once stimu- lated his passion to develop its advantages by culture, and ere long the wilderness began to blossom as the rose. The hum of industry was heard to echo in every valley, and it ascended every mountain. A new people had appeared, animated by a spirit which enlisted labor without stint and directed it in chan- nels of beauty and of use. With eyes steadily fixed upon the future, and their sturdy sinews braced to the immediate task, there is no cause for wonder that the sparse but earnest adven- turers who first set foot on the soil of the new continent, should in the steady progress of time, have made good the aspirations with which they began, of founding a future happy home for ever increasing millions of their race. Between two such forces, the American Indian, who dwells only in the present, and the European pioneer, who fixes his gaze so steadily on the future, the issue of a struggle could end only in one way. Whilst the one goes on dwindling even to the prospect of ultimate extinc- tion, the other spreads peace and happiness among numbers in- creasing over the continent with a rapidity never before equalled in the records of civilization. But here it seems as if I catch a sound of rebuke from afar in another quarter of the globe. " Come now," says the hoary denizen of ancient Africa, " this assurance on the part of a new people like you is altogether intolerable. You, of a race start- ing only as if yesterday, with your infant civilization, what non- sense to pride yourself on your petty labors, when you have not an idea of the magnitude of the works and the magnificence of the results obtained from them in our fertile regions by a popu- lation refined long and long and long before you and your boasted new continent were even dreamed of in the march of mankind. Just come over here to the land of Egypt, flowing with milk and honey. Cast a glance at our temples and pyra- mids, at our lakes and rivers, and even our tombs, erected so long since that nobody can tell when. Observe the masterly skill displayed in securing durability, calling for a correspond- in" - contribution of skilled labor # froin myriads of workmen to ORATION CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 199 complete them. Consider further that even that holy book, which you yourselves esteem as embodying the highest concep- tion of the Deity, and lessons of morals continually taught among you to this day, had its origin substantially from here. Remember that all this happened before the development of the boasted Greek and Roman cultivation, and be modest with pretensions for your land of yesterday, of any peculiar merit for your aspirations to advance mankind. To all of which interjections of my African prompter I make but a short reply. By his own showing he appeals only to what was ages ago, and not to what now is. What are the imperish- able monuments constructed so long since, but memorials of an obsolete antiquity, to be gazed upon by the wandering traveler as examples never to be copied '? If once devoted to special forms of Divine worship, the faith that animated the structures has not simply lost its vitality, but has been buried in oblivion. What are the catacombs but futile efforts to perpetuate mere matter after the living principle has vanished away ? Why not have applied what they cost to advance the condition of the ris- ing generations ? How about the sacred book to which you refer ? Docs it not record an account of an emigration of an industrious and conscientious people compelled to ny by reason of the recklessness of an ignorant ruler ? And how has it been ever since ? Although conceded by nature one of the most favored regions of the earth, the general tendency has been far from indicating a corresponding degree of prosperity. Even the splendid memorials of long past ages testify by the solitude around them only to the folly of indulging in vain aspirations. The conclusion then to be drawn from such a spectacle is not a vision of life but of death, not of hope but of despair. Lo ! I have presented to you in this picture the three types of humanity as exemplified in the social systems of the world. Whilst the African represents the past, and the Indian clings only to the present, it is left to the European and his congener in America persistently to follow in the future the great object of the advancement of mankind. 1. The retrogade. 2. The stationary. 3. The advance. Which is it to be with us ? 200 ODE NATIONAL JUBLLEE. We can only judge of the future by what it lias been in the past. Is there or is there not a peculiar element, not found in cither of the other races, which has shown so much vigor in the American during the past century as to give him a fair right to count upon large inrprovement in time to come ? I confidently answer for him that there is. That element is his devotion to the principle of liberty. Do you ask me where to find it in words! Turn we then at once to the im?nortal scroll ever fastened into the solemnities of this our great anniversary. There lies imbedded in a brief sen- tence, more of living and pervading force than could have ever been applied to secure permanence to all the vast monuments of Egypt or the world. We all know it well, but still I repeat it: " We know these truths to be self-evident: 1. That all men are created equal. 2. That they are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights. 3. That among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." I have considered those significant words as vested with a virtue st) subtile as certain ultimately to penetrate the abodes of mankind all over the world. But I separate them altogether from the solemn charges against King George, which immedi- ately follow in the Declaration. These may have been just or they may not. In the. long interval of time which has passed, ample opportunity has been given to examine the allegations with more calmness than when they were just made. May I venture to express a modest doubt whether the Sov- ereign was in reality such a cruel tyrant as he is painted, and whether the ministers were so malignantly deaf to the appeals of colonial consanguinity as readers of this d-iy may be led, from the language used, to infer. The passage of a hundred years ought to inspire calmness in revising all judicial decis- ions in history. Let us, above all, be sure that we are right. May I be permitted to express an humble belief, that the grave errors of both sovereign, ministers and people, were not so mucli rooted in a spirit of willful and passionate tyranny, as of a supercilious indifference ; the same errors I might add, which have marked the policy of that nation in later times down to a ORATION — CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 201 comparatively recent date. A very little show of sympathy, a ready ear to listen to alleged grievances, perhaps graceful con- cessions made in season, a disposition to look at colonists rather as brethren than as servants to sqaeeze something out of ; in short, fellowship and not haughtiness might have kept our affections as Englishmen perhaps down to this day. The true grievance was the treatment of the colonies as a burden instead of a blessing ; an object out of which to get as much and to which to give as little as possible. Least of all was there any conception of cultivating common affections and a common in- terest. The consequence of the mistake thus made was not only the gradual and steady alienation of the people, but to teach them habits of self-reliance. Then came at last the appeal to brute force — and all was over. Such seems to be the true cause of the breach, and not so much willful tyranny. And it appears in my opinion at least, quite as justifiable a cause for the sepa- ration, as any or all of the more vehement accusations so elabo- rately accumulated in the great Declaration of 1776. Passing from this digression, let me resume the consideration of the effect of the adoption of the great seminal principle which I have already pointed out as the pillar of fire illuminating the whole of our later path as an independent people. That this light has been no mere flashy, flickering, or uncertain guide, but steadily directing us toward the attainments of new and great results, beneficial not more immediately to ourselves than incidentally to the progress of the other nations of the world, it will be the object of this address to explain. Let us review the century. The motto shall be Excelsior. And first of all appears as a powerful influence of the new doctrine of freedom, though indirectly applied, the cooperation, with us in the struggle of the Sovereign Louis the Sixteenth, and the sympathy of the people of France. This topic would of itself suffice for an address, but I have so much more to say relative to ourselves as a directing power, that I must content myself with simply recalling to your minds what France was in 1778, when governed by an absolute monarch cooperating with us in establishing our principle, but solely for the motive of de- pressing Great Britain, and what she is in this our centennial 202 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. year, an independent republic ; after long and severe tribula- tion, at last deliberately ranging herself as a disciple of our school, frankly recognizing the force of our sovereign law. Our struggle for freedom had been some time over, when the arduous task of restoring order by the coSperation of the whole sense of the people in organizing an effective form of govern- ment, the first experiment of the kind in history, was crowned by the simultaneous selection by that people of a true hero who, having proved himself an eminent leader and trusty guide, through the perils of a seven years' conflict, was called to labor with even greater glory as a successful guide of liberty toward the arts of peace. Looking from this point of time in the year 1798, when an original experiment, the latest and most deliberate ever at- tempted, was on the verge of trial, it now becomes my duty to pass in review the chief results which have been secured by it to the human race during the past century. Has it succeeded or has it failed ? Above all, what has it done directly and in- directly in expanding the influence of its great doctrine of lib- erty, not merely at home, but over the wide surface of sea and land — nay, the great globe itself. Washington was President, but he had not had time to col- lect together his cabinet and distribute his work when events occurred which demanded instant attention. Without waiting for the advent of Jefferson, whom he had chosen as his aid in the Department of Foreign Affairs, he drew with his own hand certain papers of instructions which he committed to the charge of Mr. Grouverneur Morris, then about to sail for Great Britain, with directions promptly to confer with the British Minister thereon. Mr. Morris went out and accordingly communicated at once with the Foreign Secretary, the Duke of Leeds. The object was to negotiate a treaty of commerce, a very necessary measure at the time, but which was soon put aside by another and much more embarrassing difficulty. It had been immedi- ately reported to Mr. Morris that several persons claiming to be American citizens, when walking in the streets of London, suspecting no guile, had been, after the fashion of that day, pounced upon by a press gang and put on board of British ORATION CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 203 vessels to serve as seamen, whether they would or no. Here was the beginning of a question of personal freedom, started out of the earth at once which no American agent could venture to trifle with. Although without special instructions, Mr. Morris did not hesitate a moment to submit the grievance to the consideration of the Minister. That dignitary contented himself with an evasive answer, and the plea of the difficulty of distinguishing between citizens speaking the same language; and such became the standing pretext for the seizure of Amer- icans for many years. The act itself, looked at in our present light, seems to have been brutal enough even when applied to subjects. How much more intolerable when invading the lib- erty of men having thrown off all allegiance to the crown. I doubt whether many of you will believe me when I tell you how many Americans underwent this kind of slavery. It appears from the official papers that in 1798, 051 persons were recorded as in this condition. Eight years later the return is increased to 2,273, and the year after it amounted to 4,229. The most flagrant act of all was the later seizure of several men on board of the Chesapeake, an American vessel of war, by a for- mal order of an Admiral of a British frigate on the coast. The ultimate consequence of the equivocating course of Great Bri- tain was that this grievance proved the chief cause of the war of 1812. If ever there was a question of liberty under the definition of 1770, it seems to have been this, and the successive Presidents who were in office during the period, though themselves natives and citizens of a region little liable to suffer from the appre- hended evil, were not the less energetic and determined on that account in maintaining the right. On the other hand, this case is not without its lesson of tlie danger of infatuation in politics when we find that the resent- ment for these attacks upon liberty burned with far the most qualified ardor in the region where the population most fre- quented the seas. The singular spectacle then presented itself of the perseverance of those eminent statesmen in upholding, even at the cost of war, the rights of that portion of their breth- ren farthest removed from their own homesteads which Avere 204 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. free from danger; while many inhabitants of the coast were absolutely exhausting all the vials of their wrath upon the same distinguished statesmen for laboring even at the cost of war to secure the safety on land and water, of persons actuaUy their nearest neighbors and friends. The result you all know, was the war, waged under the cry of " free trade and sailors rights." A severe trial, but abundantly rewarded, by the security gained for liberty. From the date of the peace with Great Britain down to the present hour no cause of complaint has occurred for the impressment of a single American citizen. No difficulty in distinguishing citizenship has been experienced even though little change has been made in the use of the language common to both nations. In short, no more men have been taken whether on land or on the ocean, by force, on any pretense whatever. Singularly enough, however, fifty years later, a question of parallel import suddenly sprang up which for the moment threatened to present the same nations in a position precisely reversed. A naval commander of a United States war vessel assumed the right to board a British passenger steamer crossing the sea on her way home, and to seize and carry off two Ameri- can citizens, just as British officers had done to us in former times. This proceeding was immediately resented, and the con- sequence was a new step in favor of liberty on the ocean, for the security of the civilized world. The great waters are now open to all nations, and the flag of any nation covers all who sail under it in times of peace, And Great Britain herself, too often in days long gone by, meriting the odious title of tyrant of the ocean, by assuming that principle in the instance spoken of, and likewise by resorting to other and better means than the horrors of the press gang, has not only raised the character of her own marine, but has pledged herself to follow in the very same path of humanity and civilization first marked out by our example. Such is the first instance of the direct effect upon human liberty of the law proclaimed a hundred years ago. I proceed to consider the second : In this year of our Lord 18 70, on looking back upon the ORATION -CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. . 205 early events cf the century, it seems almost impossible to be- lieve that human rights should have been then held in so much contempt on the high seas, and that by nations as despicable in character as weak in absolute force. As eaily as the year 1785, two American vessels following their course peaceably over the ocean were boarded by ships fitted out by the Algerines, then occupying an independent position on the Mediterranean coast. The vessels were plun- dered and the crew, numbering twenty-one American freemeD, takeu to Algiers and sold for slaves. Instead of protestation and remonstrance, and fitting out vessels of war to retort upon this insolent pirate, what did the government first do ? What but to pray the assistance and intervention of such a feeble power as Sweden to help us out of our distress, and money was to be offered, not merely to ran. snm the slaves, but to bribe the barbarian not to do so any more. Of course, he went to work more vigorously than ever, and his demands became more imperious and exacting. The patience of the great Powers of Europe, whom he treated with little more deference, only furnished one more example of the case with which more audacity may for a time secure advan- tages which will never be gained by fair dealing and good will. To an American of to-day, it is inexpressibly mortifying to re- view the legislation of the country on this matter at that time. It appears that so early as the year 1791. President Washing- ton, in the third year of his service, in his speech to Congress, first called the attention of that body to the subject. On the 15th day of December the Senate referred the matter to a com- mittee, which in dne course of time reported a resolution to this effect : Resolved, That the Senate advise and consent that the Presi- dent take such measures as he may think necessary for the re- demption of the citizens of the United States now in captivity at Algiers, provided — (mind you) — provided the expense shall not exceed $10,000. Congress did not think of looking at the Declaration of In- dependence, but they passed the resolution. And what was the natural consequence ? The consular officer established by 206 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. the United States in Algiers on learning the result approved it, but added this significant sentence : I take the liberty to observe that there is no doing any busi- ness of importance in this country without palming the min- istry. The logic of all this was, that the best way to keep our people free was to make it worth the while of this ministry to make them slaves. The natural consequence was that the cost of these operations ultimately exceeded $1,000 ; 000, and the example had set the kindred Barbary powers in an agony for a share of the plunder. In February, 1802, the gross amount of expenditure to pacify these pirates and man-stealers had risen to $2,500,000, a sum large enough, if properly expended on a naval force, to have cleared them out at a stroke. No wonder, then, that President Jefferson should presently begin to recur to his draft of the Declaration of Independence. Though never very friendly to the navy, he saw that freedom was at stake, hence in his annual message of 1803 he suggested fitting out a small force for the Mediterranean, in order to re- strain the Tripoiine cruisers, and added that the uncertain tenure of peace with several other of the Barbary powers might eventually require even a re-enforcement. So said Jefferson to Congress — but his words were not re- sponded to with promptness, and the evil went on increasing. The insolence of all the petty Barbary States only fattened by what it fed on, until the freedom of American seamen in the Mediterranean was measured only by the sums that could be paid for their ransom. There is no more ignominious part of our history than this. Driven at last to a conviction of the impolicy of such a course President Madison, having succeeded to the chair of state, on the 23d of February, sent a message to Congress recommending a declaration of war. The two Houses which had become like- wise convinced that money voted to that end would go further for freedom than any bribes, now responded promptly to the call. A naval oxpedition was sent out, and on the 5th of De- cember, nine months after his adoption of the new policy, the ORATION CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 207 President had a noble opportunity of reporting to the same bodies a triumphant justification of his measure. The gallant Decatur had established the law of freedom in this quarter for- ever. Mr. Madison tells the story in these words : I have the satisfaction to communicate to you the successful termination of the war. The squadi'on in advance on that ser- vice under Commodore Decatur lost not a moment after its arrival in the Mediterranean in seeking the naval force of the enemy then cruising in that sea, and succeeded in capturing two of his ships. The high character of the American commander was brilliantly sustained on the occasion, who brought his own ship into close action with that of his adversary. Having pre- pared the way by this demonstration of American skill and prowess, he hastened to the port of Algiers, where peace was promptly yielded to his victorious force. In the terms stipula- ted, the right and honor of the United States were particularly consulted by a perpetual relinquishment by the Dey of all pre- tence of tribute from them. The Dey subsequently betrayed his inclination to break the treaty, and ventured to demand a renewal of the annual tribute which had been so weakly yielded ; but the hour had passed for listening to feeble counsels. The final answer was a declaration that the United States preferred war to tribute, and freedom to slavery. They therefore insisted upon the observation of the treaty, which abolished forever the right to tribute or to the enslaving of American citizens. There never has been since a question about the navigation of the Mediterranean, free from all danger of the loss of per- sonal freedom. It is due to the Government of Great Britain to add that, following up this example, Lord Exmouth with his fleet at last put a final stop to all further pretenses of these bar- barians to annoy the navigation of that sea. France has since occupied the kingdom of Algiers, and the abolition of slavery there was one of its early decrees. Thus has happened the liberation of that superb region of the world, the nursery of more of its civilization than any other, from all further danger of relapsing into barbarism. And America may fairly claim the 208 OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. credit of having initiated in modern times the law of personal freedom over the surface of that classical sea. I have now done with the second example of the progress of the great principle enunciated in the celebrated scroll set forth a hundred years ago. America has contributed greatly to this result, but a moment was rapidly approaching when her agency was to be invoked in a region much nearer home. The younger generations now coming into life will doubtless be astonished to learn that not much more than a half a century ago there still survived a class of men harbored in the "West Indies, successors of the bold buccaneers who, in ihe seventeenth century, became the terror to the navigation of those seas. They will wonder still more when I tell them that both ships and men were not only harbored in some ports of the United States, but were actually fitted out with a view to the plunder that might be levied upon the legitimate trade pursued by their own country- men as well as people of all other nations, in and around the islands of the Caribbean Sea. That I am not exagerating in this statement, I shall show by merely reading to you a short extract from a report made by a committee of the House of Representa- tives of the United States in the year 1821: " The extent," it says, " to which the system of pluuder is car- ried in the West India seas and Gulf of Mexico is truly alarming, and calls imperiously for the prompt and efficient interposition of the General Government. Some fresh instance of the atrocity with which the pirates infesting these seas carry on their depre- dations, ACCOMPANIED, TOO, BY THE INDISCRIMINATE MASSACRE OF THE defenceless and unoffending, is brought by almost every mail — so that the intercourse between the northern and southern sec- tions of the Union is almost cut off.'' My friends, this picture, painted from an official source, dates back little more than fifty years ago ! Could we believe it as possible that liberty and life guaranteed by our solemn declara- tion of 1776 should have been found so insecure in our own im- mediate neighborhood, at a time, too, when we were boasting in thousands of orations, on this our anniversary, of the great pro- gress we had made in securing both against violence ? And the worst of it all was that some even of our own countrymen should ORATION — CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 209 have been suspected of being privy to such raids. I shall touch this matter no further than to say that not long afterward ade- quate preparations were made to remove this pestilent annoy- ance, and to re-establish perfect freedom all over these waters^ This work was so effectively performed in 1824, that from that time to this personal liberty has been as secure there as in any other best protected part of the globe. Such is my third example of the practical advance of human freedom under the trumpet call made one hundred years ago. I come now to a fourth and more stupendous measure fol- lowing that call. The world-wide famous author of it had not been slow to grasp the conception that the abolition of all trade in slaves must absolutely follow as a corollary from his general, principle. The strongest proof of it is found in the original draft of his paper, wherein he directly charged it as one of the great- est grievances inflicted upon liberty by the king, that he had countenanced the trade. The passage is one of the finest in the paper, and deserves to be repeated to-day. It is in these words: He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the person of a dis- tant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death on their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain the execrable commerce. There is no passage so fine as this in the Declaration. Un- fortunately it hit too hard on some interests close at home which proved strong enough to have it dropped from the final draft. But though lost there, its essence almost coeval with the first publication of Granville Sharp in England on the same subject, undoubtedly pervaded the agitation which never ceased in either country until legislation secured a final triumph. The labors of Sharp and Wilb erforee, of Clarkson and Buxton, and their com- panions, have placed them upon an eminence of honor through- out the world. 210 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. But their struggle which began in 1787, was not terminated for a period of twenty years. On the other hand, it appears in the statute book in 1794, that it was enacted by the Congress of the United States: " That no vessel shall be fitted for the pur- pose of carrying on any traffic in slaves to any foreign country, or for procuring from any foreign country the inhabitants thereof to be disposed of as slaves." This act was followed in due course . by others, which, harmonizing with the ac- tion of foreign nations, is believed to have put an effective and permanent stop to one of the vilest abominations, as con- ducted on the ocean, that was ever tolerated in the records of time. But all this laborious effort had been directed only against the cruelties practiced in the transportation of negro slaves over the seas. It did not touch the question of his existing condi- tion or of his right to be free. This brings me to the fifth and greatest of all fruits of the charter of Independence, the proclamation of liberty to the cap- tive through a great part of the globe. The seed that had been sown broadcast over the world fell much as described in the Scripture, some of it sprouting too early, as in France, and yielding none but bitter fruit, but more, after living in the ground many years, producing results most propitious to the advancement of mankind. It would be tedious for me to go into details describing the progress of a movement that has changed the face of civilization. The principle enun- ciated in our precious scroll has done its work in Great Britain and in France, and most of all in the immense expanse of the territories of the Autocrat of all the Russias, who of his own mere motion proclaimed that noble decree which liberated from serfdom at one stroke twenty-three millions of the human race. This noble act will remain forever one of the grandest steps to- ward the elevation of mankind ever taken by the will of a sover- eign of any race in any age. But though freely conceding the spontaneous volition of the Czar in this instance, I do not hesitate to affirm that but for the subtle essence infused into the political conscience of the age by the great Declaration of 1776, he would never have been ORATION CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 211 inspired with the lofty magnanimity essential to the completion of so great a work. I come next and last to the remembrance of the fearful con- flict for the complete establishment of the grand principle to which we had pledged ourselves at the very outset of our na- tional career, and out of which we have, by the blessing of the Almighty, come safe and sound. The history is so fresh in our minds that there is no need of recalling its details, neither would I do so if there were, on a day like this consecrated wholly to the harmony of the nation. Never was the first as- pect of any contention surrounded by darker clouds; yet view- ing as we must its actual issue, at no time has there ever been more reason to rejoice in the present and look forward with confidence to a still more brilliant future. Now that the agony is over, who is there that will not admit that he is not relieved by the removal of the ponderous burden which weighed dowm our spirits in earlier days ? The great law proclaimed at the beginning has been at last fully carried out. No more apologies for inconsistency to caviling and evil-minded objectors. No more unwelcome comparisons with the superior liberality of absolute monarchs in distant regions of the earth. Thank God, now there is not a man who treads the soil of this broad land, void of offense, who in the eye of the law does not stand on the; same level with every other man. If the memorable words of' Thomas Jefferson, that true Apostle of Liberty, had d< >ne only this it would alone serve to carry him aloft, high up among the benefactors of mankind. Not America alone, but Europe and Asia, and above all Africa, nay the great globe itself, move in an orbit never so resplendent as on this very day. Let me then sum up in brief the results arrived at by the enunciation of the great law of liberty in 1776 : 1. It opened the way to the present condition of France. 2. It brought about perfect security for liberty on the broad and narrow seas. 3. It set the example of abolishing the slave trade, which in its turn, prompted the abolition of slavery itself by Great Britain, France, Russia, and last of all, by our own country too. 212 orn national jubilee. Standing now on this vantage ground, gained from the severe struggle of the past, the inquiry naturally presents itself, What have we left for us to do? To which I will frankly answer much. It is no part of my disposition, even on the brightest of our festival days, to deal in indiscriminate laudation, or even to cast a flimsy veil over the less favorable aspects of our national position. I will not deny that many of the events that have happened since our escape from the last great peril, indicate more forcibly than I care to admit, some decline front that high standard of moral and political purity for which we have ever before been distinguished. The adoration of Mammon, de- scribed by the poet as the " least erected spirit that fell From Heaven ; for e'en in Heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent." has done something to impair the glory earned by all our pre- ceding sacrifices. For myself, while sincerely mourning the mere possibility of stain touching our garments, I feel not the less certainty that the heart of the people remains as pure as ever. One of the strongest muniments to save us from all harm it gives me pride to remind you of, especially on this day — I mean the memory of the example of Washington. Whatever misfortunes may betide us, of one thing we may be sure that the study of that model by the rising youth of our land can never fail to create a sanative force potent enough to counteract every poisonous element in the political atmosphere. Permit me for a few moments to dwell upon this topic, for I regard it as closely intertwined with much of the success we have hitherto enjoyed as an independent people. Far be it for me to raise a visionary idol. I have lived too long to trust in mere panegyric. Fulsome eulogy of any man raises with me only a smile. Indiscriminate laudation is equivalent to false- hood. Washington, as I understand him was gifted with nothing ordinarily defined as genius, and he had not had great advantages of education. His intellectual powers were clear, but not much above the average men of his time. What knowledge he possessed had been gained from association with ORATION— CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 213 others in his long career, rather than by study. As an actor he scarcely distinguished himself by more than one brilliant stroke ; as a writer, the greater part of his correspondence discloses nothing more than average natural good sense ; on the field of battle his powers pale before the splendid strategy of Napoleon Bonaparte. Yet, notwithstanding all these deductions, the thread of his life from youth to age displays a maturity of judgment, a con- sistency of principle, a firmness of purpose, a steadiness of action, a discriminating wisdom and a purity of intention hardly found united to the sa,me extent in any other instance I can recall in history. Of his entire disinterestedness in all his pe- cuniary relations with the public it is needless for me to speak. Who ever suspected him of a stain ? More than all and above all, he was throughout master of himself. If there be one qual- ity more than another in his character which may exercise a useful control over the men of the present hour, it is the total disregard of self, when in the most exalted positions for influence and example. In order to more fully illustrate my position, let me for one moment contrast his course with that of the great military chief I have already named. The star of Napoleon was just rising to its zenith as that of Washington passed away. In point of military genius Napoleon probably equalled if he did not exceed any person known in history. In regard to the direction of the interests of a nation he may be admitted to have held a very high place. He inspired an energy and a vigor in the veins of the French people which they sadly need- ed after the demoralizing sway of generations of Bourbon kings With even a small modicum of the wisdom so prominent in Washington, he too might have left a people to honor his memory down to the latest times. But it was not to be. Do you ask the reason ? It is this. His motives of action always centered in self. His example gives a warning but not a guide. For when selfishness animates a ruler there is no cause of wonder if he sacrifice, without scruple, an entire generation of men as a holocaust to the great principle of evil, merely to maintain or extend his sway. Had Napoleon copied the exam- 214- OUE NATIONAL JUBILEE. pie of Washington lie might have been justly the idol of all later generations in France. For Washington to have copied the example of Napoleon would have been simply impossible. Let as then, discarding all inferior strife, hold up to our children the example of Washington as the symbol not merely of wisdom, but of purity and truth. Let us labor continually to keep the advance in civilization as it becomes us to do after the struggles of the past, so that the rights to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which we have honorably secured, may be firmly entailed upon the ever enlarging generations of mankind. And what is it, I pray you tell me, that has brought us to the .celebration of this most memorable day ? Is it not the steady cry of Excelsior up to the most elevated regions of political purity, secured to us by the memory of those who have passed before us and consecrated the very ground occupied by their ashes? Glorious iadeed may it be said of it in the words of the poet : What's hallow'd ground ? 'Tis what gives birth To sacred thoughts in souls of worth — Peace ! Independence ! Truth ! go forth Earth's compass round, And your high priesthood shall make earth All Hallowed Grown*. THE NEW CENTUKY, AN ABSTRACT FROM BENJAMIN FRANKLIN THOMAS' ADDRESS. DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, MECHANICS HALL, WOR- CESTER, MASS., JULY 4th, 187G. With what emotions, with what convictions, did we hail the dawning light of the new century! Were the wings of the morning those of the angel of death or of life, of despair or of hope ? I answer for myself, of life and of hope ; nay, more, of faith and of trust. We have causes for anxiety and watchful- ness, none for despair. The evils of the times are not incurable, and the remedies, simple and efficient are in our hands. Is there not, I am asked, wide-spread and growing corrup- tion in the public service of States and nation ? There is cor- ruption, but not, I think, increasing — indeed we have reason to hope it is already checked in its progress ; nor are the causes of the evil permanent in their nature, save that we always hold our " treasures in earthen vessels." We have passed through a period of expenditure almost with- out limit, and, therefore, of infinite temptations. Wars, it would seem, especially civil wars, loosen the moral ties of so- ciety. " The state of man suffers, then, the nature of an insur- rection." Civil convulsions always brings more or less bad men to the surface, and some are still afloat — men whose patriotism, not exhausted in contracts for effete muskets, spavined horses and rotten ships, are ready and waiting for like service. In the feverish delirious haste to get rich which a currency of indefin- it expansion always excites, we find another cause ; though this has disastrous results, more direct and palpable, in unset- tling values and the foundations of public and private faith, trust and confidence. The evils are curable, but not by noise of words, not by sonorous resolutions without meaning, or only the meaning the simple reader injects into them. 216 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. We may put an end to corruption by leading ourselves honest lives, by refusing to put any man into a public trust, no matter what his qualifications or past services, who is corrupt, or suf- fers himself to walk on the brink, or winks at those who are wading in ; by using the old-fashioned prescriptions for riders : "Men of truth, hating covetousness." "Thou shalt take no gift." "Ye shall not be afraid of the face of man." The evils of a vde currency can be remedied only by return to the path of the Constitution and of commercial integrity. The principles are simple and elementary. The " lawful money" of the United States is the coin of the United States, or for- eign coin whoso value has been regulated by Congress : that is the constitutional doctrine. Money is a tiling of intrinsic value, and the standard and measure of value ; that is the economical doctrine. A promise to pay a dollar is not a dollar : that is the doctrine of morality and common sense. The difficulty with the legal tender law was and is that it sought to vitalize a falsehood, to make the shadow the substance, to sign the thing signified, the promise to pay, itself payment. Great as is the power of Con- gress, it cannot change the nature of things. So long as the power is left, or assumed to be left, to make a promise to pay payment, there will be no permanent security. One other cure of corruption is open to us, — the stamping out of the doctrine that public trusts are the spoils of partisan vic- tory. The higher councils may perhaps be changed. An administration cannot be well conducted with a cabinet, or other officers in confidential relations, opposed to its policy ; but no such reason for change applies to ninety-nine hundredths of the offices now exposed in the market as rewards for partisan service. Other than in these evils I fail to see proofs of the degeneracy of the times. Whether the men and women of this generation had fallen from the standard of their fathers and mothers, we had satis- factory evidence in the late war, I care not to dwell upon its origin or to revive its memories. The seceding States reaped as they had sown; having sown to the wind, they reaped the whirlwind. Against what was to them the most beneficient of ADDRESS — BENJAMIN FRANKLIN THOMAS. 217 governments, known and felt only in its blessings, they waged, it seemed to us, causeless war, for their claim to extend slavery into the new States and Territories never had solid ground of law or policy or humanity to rest upon ; they struck at the nag in which were enfolded our most precious hopes for ourselves and for mankind. They could not expect a great nation to be so false to duty as not to defend, at every cost, its integrity and life. But while, as matter of good sense and logic, the question seemed to us so plain a one, that the Union meant nothing if a State might at its election withdraw from it ; that under the Articles of Confederation the Union had been made perpetual ; that the Constitution was adapted to form a more " perfect union than that of the Confederation, more comprehensive, direct, and efficient in power, and not less durable in time ; that there was no word in it looking to separation ; that it had careful provisions for its amendment, none for its abrogation ; capacity for expansion, none for contraction ; a door for new States to come in, none for old or new to go out ; we should find that, after all, upon the question of legal construction, learned and philosophical statesmen had reached a different conclusion ; we should find, also, what as students of human nature we should be surprised not to find, that the opinions of men on this question had, at different times and in different sec- tions of the country, been more or less moulded, biased and warped by the effects, or supposed effects, which the policy of the central power had on the material interests and institu- tions of the States. Each examination, not impairing the strength of our convictions, might chasten our pride. But aside from the logic, men must be assumed to be honest, however misguided, who are ready to die for the faith that is in them. But not dwelling upon causes, but comparing the conduct of the war with that of the Revolution, I do not hesitate to say that in the loyalty and devotion of the people to country ; in the readiness to sacrifice property, health and life for her safety ; in the temper and spirit in which the war was carried on ; in the supply of resources to the army, men as well as money ; in the 218 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. blessed ministrations of women to the sick, wounded or dying soldier ; in the courage and pluck evinced on both sides ; in the magnanimity and forbearance of the victors, the history of the late war shows no touch of degeneracy, shows, indeed, a century of progress. If its peculations and corruptions were more conspicuous, it was because of the vaster amounts expended, and the vastly greater opportunities and temptations to avarice and fraud. The recently published letters of Col. Pickering furnish additional evidence of the frauds and peculations in the supplies to the armies of the Revolution, and of the neglect of the states to pro- vide food and clothing for the soldiers, when many of the peo- ple, for whose liberties they were struggling, were living in com- parative ease and luxuary. The world moves. There is one criterion of which I cannot forbear to speak, the conduct of the soldiers of the late war upon the return of peace. How quietly and contentedly they came back from the excitements of the battle-field and camp to the quiet of home life, and to all the duties of citizenship ; with a coat, perhaps, where one sleeve was useless, with a leg that had a crutch for a comrade, but with the heart always in the right place ! The burdens of the war are yet with us ; the vast debt created these heavy taxes, consuming the very seed of future harvests ; the vacant seats at the fireside. Fifteen years and half a gene- ration of men have passed away since the conflict of opinion ripened into the conflict of arms. They have been years of terrible anxiety and of the sickness of hope deferred ; yet if their record could be blotted from the book of life, if the grave could give up its noble dead, and all the waste spots, moral and material, resume the verdure of the spring-time, no one of us would return to the state of things in 1860, with the curse of slavery hanging over us and the fires of discord smouldering be- neath us. The root of alienation, bitterness, and hate has been wrenched out, and henceforth union and peace are at least pos- sible. But there is left to us a great and solemn trust, — four mil- lions of people, whose civil status has been fixed by the organic law, but whose education and training for the duties of citi- ADDRESS — BENJAMIN FHANKLIX TUUMAS. 219 zenship aud all the higher duties of life, at whatever cost, is de- manded alike by humanity, our sense of justice, and our sense of safety. We have no right, and no cause, to despair of the republic. The elements of material prosperity are all with us ; this magnificent country, resonant^ with the murmurs of two oceans, with every variety of soil climate, and production to satisfy the the tastes or wants of man ; with its millions of acres of new- lands beckoning for the plough and spade ; with its mountains of coal and iron and copper, and its veins of silver and gold waiting like Encaladus to be delivered ; its lakes, inland seas, its rivers the highways of nations. We have bound its most distant parts together with bands of iron and steel ; we send the lightnings over it " that they may go, and say unto us, Here we are." We have all the tools of the industries, and arts which the cunning brain of man has invented and his supple fingers learned to use, and abundant capital, the reserved fruits of labor, seeking a chance for planting and increase. The means of intellectual growth are with us. We have in most of the States systems of education opening to every child the paths to knowledge and to goodness ; destined, we hope, to be universal. He who in our day has learned to read in his mother-tongue may be said to have all knowledge for his empire . And our laws, though by no means perfect, were never so wise, equal, and just as now, never so infused with the principles of natural justice and equity, nor their administration more intelligent, upright, less a respector of persons, than to-day. Indeed, in no department of human thought and activity has there been in the last century more intelligent progress than in our jurisprudence. Whatever may be said of creeds and formulas of faith, there never was so much practical Christianity as now ; as to wealth, so large a sense of stewardship ; as to labor, so high a recog- nition of its rights and dignity ; into the wounds of suffering humanity never the pouring of so much oil and wine ; never was man as man, or woman as woman, of such worth as to-day. 220 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. In spite of criticism we have yet the example and inspiration of that life in which the human and the divine were blended into one. la spite of philosophy, God yet sits serenely on his throne, His watchful providence over us, Ilis almighty arm beneath us and upholding us. For an hundred years this nation, having in trust the largest hopes of freedom and humanity, has endured. There have been whirlwind and tempest, it has ridden through them, bend- ing only, as Landor says, the oak bends before the passing wind, to rise again in its majesty and in its strength. It has come out of the fiery furnace of civil war, its seemingly mortal plague-spot cauterized and burnt out, leaving for us to-day a Republic capable of almost infinite expansion, in which central power may be reconciled with local independence, and the largest liberty with the firmest Drder. Staunch, with every sail set, her flag with no star erased, this goodly Ship of State floats on the bosom of the new cen- tury. In her we " have garnered up our hearts where we must either live or bear no life." And now, God of our fathers, what wait we for but thy bless- ing ? Let thy breath fill her sails, thy presence be her sun- shine. If darkness and the tempest come, give her, as of old, pilots that can weather the storm. THE COSTOF POPULAK LIBERTY. AN ORATION BY BROOKS ADAMS, ESQ., DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT BINGHAM, MASS., JULY 4th, 1876. Fellow-citizens : On this solemn anniversary we do not come together — if I understand our feelings rightly — to indulge in vainglorious self-praise of our fathers or ourselves. Nor do we come here to lash ourselves once more into anger over the well- known story of the wrongs our fathers suffered at the hands of the English people. "We come here neither in pride nor bit- terness. We bear malice towards none. We are at peace with all the world. What we do come for is to celebrate what we believe to have been a great era in the world's history, to call to mind the principles which were declared one hundred years ago to-day, to rejoice over the blessings which this people have in- herited through the patriotism and the wisdom of our fore- fathers, and above all to ask ourselves on this Centennial day whether we have been acting up to the standard they laid down for us, and whether we are doing our duty by our country and our age. That three millions of people should have been able to contend with the whole power of Great Britain, and to wring from her an acknowledgment of their independ- ence, is indeed surprising, but that alone would throw but a comparatively feeble light upon the early patriots. Other colo- nies have also gained their independence, whose people have Little reason to celebrate their nation's birthday. What makes this day remarkable is not so much that on it our independence was declared as that on its birth was given to popular govern- ment, and the glory of our ancestors lies not so much in having waged a successful war as in having been the first to teach the lesson to mankind.that institutions resting safely on the popular will can endure. Yet the men of that day were neither dream- ers nor enthusiasts. They did not want independence for its 222 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. own sake. They would have been perfectly content to have re- mained English subjects had they been allowed to manage their little governments as they had been accustomed, and to enjoy the rights they had always enjoyed. But they were not a race of men to endure oppression patiently. They loved liberty as they understood it, and as we understand it, more than any- thing on earth, and to preserve it they were willing to brave the greatest power of the world. II. We all know the history of the war, how it begun at Lex- Tho I'.eginning of ington and Concord and dragged through seven Government, bloody, weary years, and until it closed on the day when Gen. Lincoln, of Hingham, received the sword of Lord Cornwalhs on the surrender of Yorktown. During those years this State and this town did their part, as they have always done in the time of trial, and as they probably always will do so long as the old Puritan stock remains. Meanwhile the colonies, having thrown off their old Government, went on to organize a new one. Peace found the country ravaged, war-worn, ruined, and under Confederation. The Declaration of Independence had boldly declared not only the right but the capacity of the people for self-government. The task yet remained before them of reconstructing their Government and thus redeeming the boast that had been made. For th e first time in the world's history pop- ular institutions were really upon trial, and it seemed as though they were doomed to meet with disastrous failure. How can I describe that wretched interval, the gloomiest years in American history. The confederation hardly deserved the name of Gov- ernment. There were enemies abroad, there was dissension at home. Congress had no power to levy taxes, so that not only the interest on the public debt, but the most ordinary expenses remained unpaid. There was a debased currency, there were endless jealousies between the States, there was mutiny in the army, imbecility in Congress — the people were poor and dis- contented, and at length a rebellion broke at her in Massachu- setts which threatened to overthrow the foundation of society. The greatest and best of men — Washington, himself, was in do- OBATION BROOKS ADAMS. 'I'J'.l spair. It was then that the intelligence and power of the Ameri- can people showed itself, it was then that they justified the boast of the Declaration of Independene, it was then that they established Government. No achievement of any people is more wonderful than this. Without force or bloodshed, but by means of fair agreement alone difficulties were solved which had seemed to admit of no solution. At this distance Ox" time we can look back calmly, and we can appreciate the wisdom and self-control of men who could endure such trials and pass through action without an ap- peal to arms. And they had their awards. Nothing has ever equaled the splendor of their success. From the year 1789 to the year 18G0, no nation has ever known a more unbounded prosperity, a fuller space of happiness. In the short space of 70 years, within the turn of a single life, the nation, poor, weak and dispised. raised itself to the pinnacle of power and of glory. At the outbreak of the Revolution 3,000.000 of people, a far smaller number than the population of New York now, were scattered along the Atlantic Coast from Maine to Georgia. There were no interior settlements. Where the great cities of Buffalo and Rochester now are there were then only Indians and deer. Boston had but 14,000 inhabitants, there were no manu- factures, everything was imported from abroad. Within those 70 or 80 years all changed as if by magic. Population increas- ed ten-fold, cities sprang up in the wilderness, manufactories were established, wealth grew beyond all computation. And better than mere material prosperity, our history was stainad by no violence. We had no State executions, no reigning terror, no guillotine, no massacre. We tolerated all religious beliefs. There was perfect liberty and secmity for all men. Nor is this the highest praise to which our people are justly due. No purer men or greater statesmen ever lived than those whose lives adorn the early history of the Republic. Men who had never seen a great city, men tvhose hole experience had not extended further than the local assembly of their colon}' or the provincial corn-fields, wrote the Declaration of Independence!, and framed the Constitution of our States. We read their writings now, we wonder at them, but we do not dream equaling them our- 4 224 OUE NATIONAL JUBILEE. selves. There seemed no end to them. Orators, statesmen, judges, Washington and Jefferson, Franklin and Marshall, men who will be remembered and honored so long as our language shall endure. m. But with all the blessings we inherited from our ancestors we Slavery, inherited a curse also — the curse of negro slavery. It is easy now to see how the bitterness of the South as we should wish to be received were we Southerners. Let us rather re- member that they fought by our fathers' side through seven long years in the war of the Revolution, and that a year ago Southern soldiers marched through the streets of Boston under the old flag to celebrate with us the victory of Bunker Hill. And now on this our nation's birthday, in the midst of peace, with our country more wealthy and more populous than ever before, are we content ? Can we look over the United States and honestly tell ourselves that all things are well within us ? We cannot conceal from ourselves that all things are not well. For the last ten years a shameless corruption has gone on about us. We see it on every side. We read of it daily in the newspapers until we sicken with disgust. It has not been confined to any section or state, or city, to either political party, or to any de- partment of Government. It has been all-pervading. IV. One hundred years ago to-day birth was given to this nation Political in its struggle for the rights of men. On this day Party. if on no other we can rise above our party ties, we can feel that we are all citizens of a common country striving for a common cause, members of a common party, all Republicans, all Democrats. We may differ as to the means but we agree upon the end. We all long for a great and respected country, for a happy and united people between the North and South slowly grew until it burst into civil war. And truly that war did continue until every drop of blood drawn by the last had been repaid by another drawn by the sword. Though years have passed by, which of us does not remember the awful agony ORATION BKOOKS ADAMS. 225 of that struggle, the joy at the news of victory, the gloom after defeat. Even now when we recall those days we feel the old rage arise within ns, the old bitterness return. Not far from these doors stands the statue of Massachusetts' greatest Governor — Mr. Andrews. Truly his life should teach us that as men are good and brave, so are thej hind and forgiving. Surely he would not have cherished resentment toward a con- quered foe. Surely he would have bsen the last to preach the doctrine of internal hate. Surely Mr. Lincoln was full of kind- ness toward the South. If ever we are again to have a united people, we must learn to feel as he felt. We must remember men will never be good citizens who are treated with suspicion and distrust. We must, above all things, teach ourselves to be just. We must remember that the foundation of this govern- ment is equal laws for all, and that there cannot be one law for Massachusetts and another for Virginia. The issues of the war are dead ; Slavery is abolished, never to be revived ; it is forbidden by the Constitution, and we have the means to enforce obedience should any disobey. No State will ever again support the cause which has been trampeled in the dust by national armies. Let us then remember this Cen- tennial year by forgetting sectional differences. Let us receive them as brothers. There are certain duties which the citizen owes this country that cannot be thrown aside, and the first of these duties is to see that the Government is pure. The strug- gles of the Democrats and Federalists of three-quarters of a century ago no longer excites us. Tet we see two parties, each believing in themselves in the right, and each fighting fiercely for what they believe. We know what the Democrats were. We know that under their will the country was prosperous and happy, and we are justified in believing that had victory been reversed, the country would have prospered still. What matters it to us to which political party Washington, Jefferson, Madison, or Jay belonged ? We know that they were great and wise, and we honor them and love them as American citizens. What does it matter to us if the people and the men they chose to govern them were intelligent and honest, and made the American name feared and respected throughout the world. 226 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. There may not be among us men equal to the early patriots, men whose names will still be remembered when this nation has passed away, but we have men whose honor is as stainless, whose lives are as pure, and who, if they cannot bring genius. can at least bring integrity and devotion to the public service. We have no standing army, no aristocracy. The whole future of our society rests on the respect the people feel for law. Laws can only be respected when the laws themselves, the men who make them, and the men who administer them command our respect. If the time shall ever come when American judges shall habitually sell justice, when American legislators shall sell their votes, and the public servants the nation's honor, all respect for our institutions will die in the minds of our people, and the Government born one hundred years ago to-day will be about to pass away. The question even now forces itself upon us, what do the Official Cor- things that are about us portend ? Is all that we ruption. have seen and heard only the sign of a passing evil, which we may hope to cure, or does it show that we are already the victims of that terrible disease which has so often been the ruin of republics ? Is the very glory and splendor of the nation to prevent its ruin, and do its wealth and prosperity bear out, then, the seeds of decay ? Our fathers were small and scat- tered people — sober, frugal and industrious. There was no great wealth, nor was then extreme poverty. Most men were farmers, and had that best and most practical of all education — the management of their own property, the process of gov- ernment comparatively simple, and the temptations compara- tively small. In a century all this has changed ; we are forty millions of people instead of three millions ; we are crowded together in great cities ; we have railways and manufactures ; we have huge aspirations, vast wealth. But side by side with our beautiful churches and rich colleges there exists, where the population is dense, much poverty and ignorance. On the other hand, men are assailed by all the tempaiions of a rich and complex society. In the history of the past few years that ORATION BEOOKS ADAMS. 227 evil has slowly gained strength ; a class of men are beginning to hold office, with the approbation of the people, whose object is plunder ; a class who look upon the public revenues as a fund from which to steal — nay, more, who seek public offices for motives of private gain by using their influence to make money for themselves. VI. There we already sse the beginning of the end. No popular Necessity of government can endure which does not do justice, a Change. much less one which is systematically perverted. No government can endure which allows the property of its citizens to oe taken from them under the guise of taxes, not for profitable purposes, but to satisfy private greed. These abuses came with ring rule, and there is hardly a rich city or a great State in the Union which does not know the meaning of government by rings. Corrupt courts, enormous taxes, ruinous debts, impure politics, are the consequences, and the conse- quences we have seen. If we have now arrived at the point where we feel ring government gradually closing in upon us ; if the majority of the people has not the power or the intelli- gence, or the will, not only to protect themselves against fresh assaults, but to purify society from taint, this is for us indeed a gloomy anniversary, and our hope can be but small. In such a struggle to stand still is to be conquered. Nothing in the world is stationary, and if government does not diminish it will assuredly increase. I do not believe there is excuse for gloom. We know the people with whom we have always lived, and we know that they are neither dishonest nor ignorant, and I do not believe that the people of the other States in the Union are behind the peo- ple of Massachusetts. But there are also other better reasons for confidence. This the generation which carried through the war ; no sterner test could be applied to any people. There was no constraint upon them ; peace was always within their reach ; it could have been attained at any time had the majority desired it. After brief allusions to the prominent causes for hope, the speaker concluded as follows : 228 OUB NATIONAL JUBILEE. Fellow-citizens, believing as I do that our institutions are wise and good, believing as I do that, properly administered, they yield to us the fullest measure of happiness, believing that our people are essentially the same as the people cf one hun- dred years ago — equally honest, equally intelligent, equally self-sacrificing — I see no cause for despondency in the future, I see reason for brightest hope. Provided we remember that our responsibilities are as great now as they ever have been during our history — provided we keep in mind the warning of Wash- ington, that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance — provided we are awake to the knowledge that abuses which are tolerated may in time overpower us — there lies before this Republic the happiest future which any nation has ever been permitted to enjoy ; a future as happy and as glorious as its past. Let us then, in this centennial year, putting aside all personal ambi- tion and all selfish aims, firmly resolve that we will strive hon- estly, patiently, humbly, in the position in which God has placed us, to regain that noble purity in which our nation was born, pre-eminent to the end that our children, at another centennial, may say of us that they too had their ink'well in the world's history, and through them this Government of the people for the people by the people still endureth. AMEEICAN FREE INSTITUTIONS; THE JOY AND GLORY OF MANKIND. AN ADDRESS BY DR. J. J. M. SELLMAN, delivered at the centennial celebration, baltimore, md., july 4th, 1876 My fellow citizens, could there be anything more expressive and so eminently fitting than to see the people gathering to- gether in their respective neighborhoods at the early dawn of the Centennial anniversary of our national independence? Does it not evince a profound reverence and love for the great fundamental principjes that underlie the foundation of this free republic ? Esteeming our inheritance as the richest that was ever bequeathed to mankind, we cannot but most tenderly and lovingly remember what heroism and extreme suffering those noble men and women of the revolutionary period were required to have and endure in nurturing that spirit of independence for which we as a nation are so characteristic and pre-eminently distinguished. "We might recall names, depict m stirring words the patriotic deeds, and portray in glowing pictures the spirit that animated them in making such a sacrifice upon their part, in behalf of that freedom, that was the precursor of such transcendant glory and renown to the remotest generations. But my friends, I am prescribed by the want of time from pursuing this most interesting course under present circumstances. Fully appre- ciating the noble work and unparelleled sacrifices of our illus- trious sires of revolutionary fame, it will be no disparagement to say that others in later generations have also helped to mould our institutions and shape the policy of the government, and that we too have our part in this beneficient work commenced by the noble men of 1776. It is well, my friends, to continue our accustomed Fourth of 230 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. July celebration, and endeavor to increase, if possible, the pub- lic interest in that most sacred day. To feel otherwise than joy- ous upon such an occasion would not be in consonance with the inherent sentiment of the genius of the American people, who are so well-grounded and settled in the faith and spirit so eloquently set forth in the incomparable declaration of princi- ples enunciated and proclaimed a century ago. The spirit of our devotion to the sacred principles of Constitutional Free Government does not grow cold and indifferent or less vivacious by the lapse of time, though it be a century, but is ever increas- ing by the development of the transcendant beauty, beneii- cient designs of the patriotic architects of our great inher- itance. We all know how our hearts glow with patriotic ardor at the bare mention of the day which marks our Nation's birth — fathers and mothers teach their little ones to lisp and revere the day sacred to the American Independence, and the palid cheek of age flushes with enthusiasm, and the dim eye kindles with patriotic fire, when memory brings the scenes of other days around them, and pass in review the hallowed names of our illustrious sires, who dedicated their lives and fortunes to secure, preserve and maintain the immortal principles of representative self-government, which had been enunciated by the protest of a gallant people determined to be free. My friends, the -fourth day of July is and should always be a festal day which we as a nation might joyfully commemorate. The custom of reading the Declaration of Independence ought to have real practical value, but it has become somewhat common -placed, and is regarded only as a primary lesson of constitutional government, having grown from infancy to maturity, does not lessen the value of keeping those essential principles ever fresh in our hearts and memories. I do not, however, propose to read that sound and practical lesson before breakfast, my friends, but there are times when it might be read with great profit. A recurrence to first principles sometimes is most important, and cannot it be said with emphasis that of late years both government and people have drifted far away from the essential ADDRESS DK. J. J. M. SLLLMAN. 231 rudiments of republican education, and that a return to those elementary principles of const itutioual government would have a very salutary effect upon the political tone of the republic. Political safety and happiness, my friends, depends largely upon a strict adhesion to the immortal principles of a free and independent government. So resplendant and promising are our possessions and pros- pects, we must not permit human ambition and treacherous baseness to despoil our precious and dear-bought inheritance. I am confident it is in keeping with this sound sentiment that we come here to welcome in this Centennial birthday of our nation, and to give some public expression to the ardor of our hearts and minds in relation to this interesting epoch in our national history. It was this holy sentiment that developed into action the mighty energies of the men who secured the liberties we now so richly enjoy, and from which, by wise and ardent devotion, the glorious edifice upon which rest the pillars of the rights of self-government and the inestimable prerogative of freedom of conscience. Those noble men who came out of the Revolu- tionary struggle for Independence, with a holy love for freedom erected and dedicated this beautiful temple to liberty and free conscience, whose foundation is a mighty continent, the bound- aries of which shall reach and extend from ocean to ocean. American free institutions is this beautiful temple, and stands this day in all its majestic beauty, the pride of history, the joy and glory of mankind ; tenderer and more devoted, higher and holier than aught on earth save a mother's love, is the almost divine sentiment which makes us love and cherish the land of our birth. And now at this auspicious time, at the very begin- ning of this, the second century of our political experience, let us, if we would have the same patriotic and fraternal feeling that distinguished the period of the event which we this clay com- memorate, draw nearer and nearer to a higher appreciation of the true principles of constitutional government. If the spirit of the nation be entirely directed towards wise ends and purposes, what an endless source of happiness would be felt throughout the wide extent of this great republic. The noble superstruction 232 OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. erected by the agonizing struggles of the Revolutionary sires, and baptised with their patriotic blood, cau only be preserved and kept secure by pristine authority and respect for those immor- tal principles whereby every human being in the land, of every race and condition, may enjoy equal protection and privilege. In lieu of discord and distrust, we should have more fraternal feel- ing between all sections of the country, every element of dis- turbance should be removed, that all may share in an undimmed glory of American institutions. Ours should be a government that all can love and rever, from the pure motive of reverence and love. We want a patriotism, my friends, that will knit together all the people in one loving brotherhood, that shall have no limit other than the wide domain over which the nation's flag so proudly floats. It is the sentiment thus acting upon free institu- tions, and again re-acting through them upon the people that constitute their public spirit and political genius. My fellow- citizens, are we not confronted at this very moment with a crisis freighted with great responsibility, and what shall be the result, if we fail to improve the opportunity and rise to the full mea- sure of these responsibilities ? The public mind and morals of the nation has become sordid and reckless, the innocent and confiding people, nauseated and disgusted, until at last the mo- ral goodness of the masses have become alarmed in the interest of republican institutions and of a pure government. This land of religious, civil and political freedom can only be preserved by a strict adherance to the sacred principles enunciat- ed in the Declaration of Independence. To me the most hope- ful sign of the times is the evident desire in the public mind to purify the political atmosphere, and to eradicate all taint of corruption that now pervades it, and get back to the better principles of the early days of the Republic. Corruption has grown stronger and stronger, until it has permeated every avenue of pub- lic and private life, resulting chiefly from the apathy and indiffer- ence of the people in choosing their representative men. If we would have a pure National, State or Municipal govern- ment, we must insist upon putting into places of honor and re- sponsibility, none other than men of recognized probity and in- ADDRESS DR. J. J. M. SKLLMAN. 233 tegrity. In no other way may you expect to see disseminated throughout the land those broad, deep, and lofty sentiments, whereby the moral sense of the Republic may be restored. We must ignore to a great extent this party fealty, that is the bar- rier to a full and faithful expression of the better judgment. If we would strictly adhere to the inflexible rule laid down by the early Fathers, in the choosing of our public servants, we should soon realize a change for the better. Is he honest ? is he com- petent ? was their test. All the vague and unmeaning promises and political plat- forms avail nothing for good, but only serve the purposes for which they are intended — namely, to mystify and delude the honest public sentiment. It is in the strength and moral good- ness of the people that we can look with confidence for the re- generating and revivifying power whereby the national Constitu- tion may be restored to pristine soundness. My hope for the pros- perity and perpetuity of this nation is anchored upon this strong- tower of strength. The platform of an intelligent mind, and an honest heart that can rise above all political chicanery, is of in- finite more value than aught else beside. I speak plainly, my friends, because of the magnitude of our responsibilities. Each generation has its part to perform in the extension and promotion of the free institutions of this great republic. It is true the foundation laid by the skillful hands of the early Fathers is broad, deep and strong, and cemented with patriotic blood. But it is for each generation in its turn to con- tribute its best material, that they may add beauty to beauty and strength to strength, until its magnetic proportions and resplendant glory shall reach out and over all the countless ages to come. With all the grevious mistakes of the past century (and there have been many), it is a source of pride and satisfaction to every lover of his country to witness the unparalleled progress made in science, literature and mechanic arts; and when coupled with the wonderful agricultural and mining products of the republic, we can have some faint idea and appreciate the im- measurable stores of wealth that is yet to flow into our already well filled cup. O, my friends, America's free institutions and 23i OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. her rich agricultural soil and mineral wealth is without a coun- terpart. It is only in yonder Exposition building where the products of the soil and the skillful industry of all nations are brought into comparison, that any delicate idea can be found of the mighty power that is felt, and what a transcendant hale of glory encircles the very name of American institutions. The ef- fulgent rays of freedom's light are penetrating far and wide into the heretofore dark and misty minds of other nations, yet un- blessed with free institutions and political privileges as we are. I pray we may now, at the beginning of this the second centu- ry, take a long step forward in the true path of progress, which must necessarily connect us with all advanced ideas that tend to the further developement of knowledge, that leads to the dis- covery of all truth. I extend my hearty centennial congratulations, and invite you to join me in one more thought that is suggestive of my own feelings upon this interesting occasion which I have embodied in the following words: Unfold the nation's flag, fling its folds to the breeze, Let it float o'er these hills, as well as the seas; Let the old and the young unitedly stand To defend and protect the flag of the land. Lift it up, wave it high, 'tis as bright as of old, Not a stain on its purity, not a blot on its fold; Lift it up, 'tis the old banner of red, white and blue, 'Tis the sunburst resplendent, far flashing its hue. Look aloft look aloft, lo ! the sunbeams coming down Are its folds not emblazoned with deeds of renown, Through triumph and victory for one hundred long years; Beautiful banner, baptised with blood and with tears. Behold, behold the clouds passing by, Are we not reminded how time has to die ; Let we then, while we can, render homage and love To the flag of the nation and the God that's above. OUR FLAG-THE PROUD EMBLEM OF THE REPUBLIC. AN ADDRESS BY GEN. FERDINAND 0. LATROBE, MAYOR OF BALTIMORE. DELIVERED AT BALTIMORE, MD., JULY 4tH, 1876. Gentlemen : — On behalf of the Commissioners of Harlem Park, I accept the beautiful flag which you have this day pre- sented. Our country's flog, the most fitting gift to be made on her one hundreth birthday. What recollections crowd upon us on this Fourth of July, 1876 ! One hundred years ago on this most blessed day, there assembled in Independence Hall, in the City of Philadelphia, a band of patriots, who bravely, fearlessly proclaimed to the world that immortal declaration, written by Jefferson, which created a new nation among the powers of the earth. A century has elapsed, and from those original thirteen States has grown this mighty confederation known as the United States of America. The flag thrown to the breeze in 1 76 has withstood the battle and the storm ; and now triumphantly waves over thirty-eight great States, and fifty millions of free and independent citizens. Based upon free institutions, free speech, free thought, and free schools, our Union rests upon an imperishable rock foundation, that only hardens with the test of a century. What a triumph for Republican institutions. The birth of our country was not peaceful. One could sup- pose on reading the words of the declaration that the expression of such sentiments, such " self-evident truths," would have brought forth shouts of gladness and congratulations from the enlightened nations of the world ; but the greeting received was from mouths of shotted cannon, the rattling of steel ramrods, the sharpening of swords, and the whitening of the ocean with the sails of transports, bearing armed men across the sea to stamp out the bursting bud of liberty before it should bloom into the flower of eternal life. 236 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. During seven long years of trial and suffering the American patriots under the leadership of the immortal Washington, struggled for a free existence. At times the fortunes of the colonies were at so low an ebb, that the great leader himself almost despaired of final triumph, and contemplating a pos- sibility of failure had determined to rally around him those who preferred death to submission, retreat to the fastnesses of the mountains in the interior, and there maintain a desperate strug- gle for liberty until the end. But the God of battles had willed it otherwise, the darkness of the storm was followed by the bursting light of the day of freedom, and the nation nursed in a cradle of blood and war for seven years after its birth, sprung into manhood in the triumph of victory in 1773. And now one hundred years have passed. We had our trials and troubles, wars, foreign and domestic, but the Providence that so tenderly watched over us in our infancy has not neglected us in our prime. To-day the Eepublic is at peace with all the world, our flag respected at home and abroad, our people pros- perous and happy, and our example already liberalizing those very governments which looked with horror and dread at the growth of free institutions. And when another century rolls around, may future generations be as devoted to these great principles of freedom, and as determined to maintain them as the generations that have passed. And in 1976, as now, may the star spangled banner in triumph still wave, " o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." I accept in the name of the Commissioners of Harlem Park this beautiful flag, and assure you upon their part that it shall be cherished as it deserves. And when hereafter it floats from your tall staff, may the mothers of Baltimore, pointing their children to its gorgeous folds, teach them to love, honor and revere that starry banner, as the proud emblem of this great Eepublic ! A CENTENNIAL RETROSPECT. A POEM BY DR. FRED. A. PALMER, OF MONTMORENCI, S. C. DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, AIKEN, S. C, JULY 4th, 1876. A noble band of patriots with faces all aglow Stood in the Halls of Congress one hundred years ago ; Stood side by side, as they had stood upoD the battle-field, When they compelled the troops of England's King to yield. The enemies of Liberty sat silent, pale and still While these brave men prayed God to know and do his will ; It was an hour when Justice was trembling in the scales, When God from man the future in tender mercy veils. These brave men knew that they must act for children yet un- born, They sealed the Nation's destiny upon that glorious morn, When each man pledged his all for Right, for Liberty and Peace, Forever sacred to our hearts shall be such men as these. 'Tis true they left a stain upon our banner fold, But we have wiped it out with blood and paid for it in gold ; These patriots fought for Liberty, and pledged themselves to stand For Freedom, Right, and Justice, a firm unbroken band. But while they threw their own chains off, they bound in bonds more strong The bands that held the colored man in misery and wrong ; But soon or late all wrong comes right, for such is God's decree, And in His own good time He set the black man free. It was not some one favored State, North, South, East or West, 238 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. That gave the true brave signers of that Declaration blest ; No ; each State gave her patriots who bore their noble share, And when the Nation's work was done, each State had proud names there. Let us clasp hands, to work as one, for all the Nation's good And stand together as one man, as once our fathers stood ; Behold, how short the time has been, but one brief hundred years, To plant the tree of Liberty and water it with tears. Brave men have fallen on the field, to guard that sacred tree, To save it from all vandal hands our aim shall ever be ; Altho' we still have many faults, our Nation yet is young ; And we will carry out the work which these brave men begun. We live in freedom ; let us clasp each other by the hand ; In love and unity abide, a firm, unbroken band ; We cannot live divided ; the Union is secure ; God grant that while men live and love this Nation may endure. ADDKESS. BY HON. P. C. CHENEY, GOV. OF N. IT., AND PRESIDENT OF THE DAY. AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, AT MANCHESTER N. H., JULY 4, 1816. Fellow-citizens, ladies and gentlemen — We meet here to-day to recall the memories of the past, to hallow the acts and deeds of our fathers, to pay our tribute of love and grateful remem- brance to the heroic dead, who, one hundred years ago, bravely met the duties of the hour and in convention declared that these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and independent States, and in support of which solemnly pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. We meet here too to note the rapid progress in art and science, the triumphant and onward march of civil and religious liberty : but what is most important of all, my fellow-citizens, we are here to consider how great is the responsibility which rests upon us, the children of this blessed inheritence, to which has been committed the truths that were purchased and paid for in the sacrifice of lives and fortunes of men whose inspirations were from on high and whose actions were crowned with more than human success. The experience of this generation has led us of the people to comprehend how great and how serious is the charge with which we are entrusted. Yes; bitter experience has taught us if we would preserve these blessings unimpaired, we must keep our hearts filled with love towards one anoth- er, and we can move forward with malice towards none and charity for all. But I don't propose to occupy your time; I take pleasure in introducing to you a man whose name is a guarantee that it will be a pleasure to listen to. Mr. B. F. Dame will now read the Declaration of Indepen- dence. THE DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC. AN ORATION BY HON. LEWIS W. CLARK. delivered at the centennial celebration, manchester, n. h., july 4th, 1876. An inspired writer hath said, " To everything there is a sea- son, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." It is well to remember, as the years wear away, the anniversary of one's birth to union, as that advancing age is bringing us nearer to " that bourne from whence no traveler returns." It is well to keep in memory the valor, the sacrifices and the patriotism of those who fought and fell at Lexington and Bunker Hill in the great struggle for liberty, by a proper observance of the annual return of the 19th of April and the 17th of June. If it is well to observe the anniversary of these events, how much more appropriate to observe this day — the birth-day of a nation — and that nation ours ; the anniversary of the birth of that govern- ment which not only declares that all are born free and equal, but affords to all equal rights, and affords to all equal protec- tion in the enjoyment of those rights, without regard to age, sex, color or condition in life. We are assembled here to celebrate by appropriate exercises the one hundredth anniversary of American independence, and it is good that we should be here. Auspicious day ! ever memo- rable in the history of the world and in the annals of civiliza- tion. We have no need to build tabernacles to commemorate this event. They are already built, — founded by the patriotism of our fathers, — erected on soil drenched with the blood which has made every battle field of the revolution from Lexington to Yorktown memorable, and sustained by that unfaltering faitb in free institutions, and that love of civil and religious liberty that inspired our forefathers at Delft Haven, starting on their peril- ous voyage on the Mayflower ; at Plymouth Rock ; amid the ADDRESS LEWIS W. CLARK. 241 snow of mid winter at Valley Forge, when, witli frozen feet, starving stomachs, and scantily clad bodies, under the leader- ship of Washington and his noble compeers, all sufferings were endured, obstacles overcome, and finally, at the cost of blood, privation and life, the right for us to assemble here to-day in peace was secured. Blessed be the memory of those who, at so great a sacrifice, purchased these blessings for us ! Fortu- nate will it be for our children's children if we have the virtue and wisdom to transmit to them unimpaired the glorious heri- tage bequeathed to us by onr fathers. A century! It extends beyond the period of the life of man, and yet it comprises but the infancy of a nation. "What changes have been wrought, aud what a multitude of marvellous events have been crowded into that period of time ! Not one of all this vast assemblage saw the sunlight of heaven on the 4th of July, 1776 ; and not one of us here to-day will participate in the exercises of the next centennial. One hundred years ago to-day at Philadelphia, in Independ- ence Hall, or rather on the steps of the Hall, at two o'clock in the afternoon was published to the world the Declaration of our national Independence, framed by Thomas Jefferson. And when, after the terrible struggle of the Revolution had secured the ac- knowledgment of that independence among the nations of the earth, a constitution was framed and submitted to the people of all the States for adoption, it was the vote of New Hampshire, given in convention, June 21, 1788, which secured the requisite number of States (a two-thirds) as required by the Constitution, and it became the Constitution of the United States of America which formed the Union of the States which exists to-day, and which we trust will continue to exist through all the ages to come. In the contest for freedom New Hampshire was among the foremost, and we may well to-day have a just pride in the names of Stark, Poor, Goffe, and Sullivan, and all those who stood shoulder to shoulder during those trying years of the infant re- public. We revere their memories. The hero of Bennington sleeps on the banks of our beautiful river. His body may turn to dust again, " old time with his chisel small " may consume the 242 OUR NATIONAL JIIULEE. unassuming granit shaft that marks his last resting place, but the name of Stark will be remembered as long as the waters of the Merrimack flow by his grave to the sea. It is proper, after the lapse of a century, upon looking over the events of the past, to inquire what progress has been made. As a nation we have, from a comparatively small population, in- creased to forty-four millions of people ; schools and churches all over the land ; a great advancement has been made in art and in science ; we have the telegraph, the railroad, the steamboat, vast improvement in machinery of all kinds, wonderful inven- tions for the saving of human labor which were unknown one hundred years ago. Then, where our city now stands, was but a sparce population — a few scattered farm-houses, and the vast waterpower of the Merrimack was undeveloped ; to-day we have a beautiful city, with a population of thirty thousand people, with superior educational and religious advantages, and the hum of machinery and the sound of busy labor are continually to be heard. But after all these seeming evidences of prosperity and im- provement, has there been any real advancement in our civiliza- tion of a higher type? Are the people more intelligent and virtuous? Is there more honesty in public men, in the adminis- tration of the various departments of the government, and pub- lic justice in the execution of the laws ? And are the people more obedient to them than they were one hundred years ago ? If not, where is the progress and improvement ? But yet, let us hope that we have made some advance ; and that the world is better for the existance of the American nation during the century just closed. And now, as we look forward to the future, and enter upon an- other century of our national existence, let us profit by the ex- perience of the past, that we may avoid a recurrence of the diffi- culties and conflicts through which we have passed. In a faithful obedience to the requirements of the constitu- tion lies our only hope of safety for the perpetuity of our insti- tution. Equal rights to all, means equal rights to each State, to each community, and to each citizen ; and no State, com- ADDRESS — LEWIS W. CI, ARK. 243 munity or individual has a right, under the constitution, to trespass upon or abridge the rights of any other. Can this Union long exist when the people of one State shall attempt to interfere with and control the people of another State, in viola- tion of the constitution ? Can it long exist when the majority shall attempt to disregard entirely all the rights of the minor- ity ? Does it tend to the maintenance of the constitution and the preservation of the Union, that honest and capable public officers shall be set aside for a conscientious discharge of a pub- lic duty, to give place to others who will, perhaps, be the pliant tools of a particular faction or a particular party ? or that one man shall be allowed to control the right of suffrage of another? or that the right of suffrage shall be sold like merchandise in the market? These evils if they exist, are contrary to the in- stitutions founded by the fathers, and let every citizen in the State and nation aim to secure the purity of the ballot, and a faithful and impartial administration of the government, the constitution and the laws. Then the stars shall not fade from our glorious flag as the words of the declaration of independ- ence have faded upon the parchment, nor shall its folds trail in the dust, but it shall continue to float as the emblem of our na- tional sovereignty, protecting every American citizen over whom it floats, in every land, and on every sea. Let us hope and believe that this shall be the destiny of the Republic, and with nobler aims and a more exalted patriotism, endeavor to discharge our duties as citizens, then we can say in the beautiful words of Longfellow — " Thou, too, sail on, O ship of State. Sail on, O Union, strong and great. Humanity, with all its fears, With all its hopes of future years, Is hanging hreathless on thy fate. We know what master laid thy keel, What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel 5 Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, What anvils rang, what hammers beat, In what a forge and what a heat Were shaped the anchors of thy hope. Fear not each .sudden sound and shock, 'Tis of the wave and not the rock ; 'Tis but the flapping of a sail, And not a rent made, by the gale. 244 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. In spite of rock antl tempest's roar, Iu spite of false lights on the shore- Sail on ! nor fear to breast the sea ; Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee, Our hearts, our hopos, our prayers, our tears — Our faith triumphant o'er our fears — Are all with thee, are all with thee I THE FIRST CENTURY OF THE REPUBLIC. AN" ADDRESS BY JUDGE ISAAC W. SMITH. DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT MANCHESTER, N. H., JULY 4th, 1876. My Fellow Countrymen : Our republic has reached a halting place in the grand march of nations, where the wheels of time seem for a moment to stop ere they commence again to turn in the perpetual circuit of the centuries. We pause this day in our journey as a nation to look back upon the past and gird ourselves anew for still further upward progress. Shall we glance at the heroic age of New England, the event- ful story of the Puritans? They were indeed burning and sinning lights amid persecution, sealing with their lives their faith in an over-ruling God. At Delfthaven they knelt on the seashore, commending themselves with fervent prayer to the protection of heaven : friends, home, native land, they left behind them forever, and encountered the dangers of unknown seas in search of a place where they might worship the living God according to the dictates of conscience. We admire the firm faith in which they met the horrors of Indian warfare, the privations of cold, disease and death, " lamenting that they did not five to see the glories of the faith- ful." The story of the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock, of heros more noble than Greek or Roman, of conflicts more sub- lime and victories more important than any recorded in history — is it not written in our hearts ? And do we not contemplate this day with affectionate remembrance the debt of gratitude we owe to the men and women who laid so broad and deep the foundations of civic and religious liberty ? This day, the joyful shout "America is free!" spreads from state to state, from city to city, from house to house, till the whole land rings with the glad voice, and echo upon echo comes back from every mountain and hill-side, " America is free !" On 2IG OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. our mountains and on the great plains of the West, forty mil- lions of voices unite in sending from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the Pacific the songs of freedom. Shady groves resound with the merry voices of innocent children. Busy streets are tilled with throngs of freemen. Eloquence portrays with glowing tongue and burning lips those struggles and triumphs in which the nation was born, and to-day stands forth a mighty one in the great family of governments. The early dawn was ushered in with ringing of bells and every demon- stration of joy. It is celebrated by every class, society and organization, by civic processions, floral gatherings, orations, military reviews, each and all with the joy and enthusiasm whicl Americans only can feel. The going down of the sun will be the signal for the gathering of thousands upon thou- sands to Close the festivities of the day amid the blazing of rockets and the glittering of fireworks, rivaling the stars in splendor and beauty. We to-day look back through a period of one hundred years upon the men in congress assembled who proclaimed thirteen infant colonies a free and independent nation. Lexington, and Concord, and Bunker Hill had demonstrated that men could fight, and men could die in defence of liberty. The illustrious men who composed that memorable congress, in support of the Declaration of Independence ; " pledged their lives, their for- tunes, their sacred honors" — their all Lives and fortunes were sacrificed in its defence but not honor. Scarcely three millions of people were scattered along the Atlantic coast from New Hampshire to Georgia — a narrow fringe of settlements hardly extending beyond the Alleghanies ; while beyond the vast expanse of this mighty continent was an unknown wilderness — the abode of savages ready to press down upon the unguarded settlements with the arrow and tom- ahawk. Through seven long years war raged throughout the land. Men of the same blood and language faced each other in hostile array. But darkness and doubts at length passed away, and day dawned upon the long night of the revolution. The roll of musketry and the clash of arms were hushed. To-day we have addrb:ss — JUDGE ISAAC W. SMITH. 247 become a nation of forty-four millions. Westward tbc star of empire has taken its way, till cities mighty and influential have risen, flourishing on either seaboard and on the vast plains through which the " fathers of Waters " cuts his way from the Great Lakes of the North to the Gulf that washes our Southern borders. " The busy town, the rural cottage, the lowing herd, the cheerful hearth, the village school, the rising spire, the solemn bell, the voice of prayer, and the hymn of praise, brighten and adorn American life and privileges.'' What mighty changes have these one hundred years wit- nessed ! The seed of liberty sown by our fathers has ger- minated and nourished even in the monarchies of Europe. Napoleon made all tremble with his hostile legions. Forty centuries looked down on his conquering armies from the pyramids of Egypt. France, the scene of so many revolutions, has become enrolled in the list of republics. Other nations, catching the shouts of freemen, have compelled the loosening of the reins of power. Thrones that have stood firmly for ages have been made to tremble upon their foundations. Austria, the laud of tyranny and oppression, has compelled her emperor to abdicate. The Pope, whose election was hailed by the whole civilized world as the harbinger of a better administra- tion, was hardly seated upon his throne before he fled in dis- guise from his pontifical halls, and St. Peter's and the Vatican resounded with the triumphal shouts of an awakened nation. Hungary struggled for independence as a nation, and practi- cally achieved it, so that to-day it lives under laws enacted by its own parliament, and accepts the emperor of Austria as king. Russia has emancipated her serfs and taken vast strides in her progress as a nation. China is no longer a walled nation, shut up from the rest of the world. With Japan she has opened her gates to the commerce of the world, and civilization has began to loosen the scales from the eyes of hundreds of mil- lions of people in these two nations, whose origin as well as their knowledge is the arts and sciences, is lost in the dim ages of antiquity. On the Western Continent we have in the war of 1812-15 as- serted our right against England to travel the highways of the 248 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. seas unmolested. The Saxons have conquered and dismember- ed Mexico. The most gigantic rebellion the world ever saw has been suppressed, and with it fell the institution of shivery. That foul blot upon the otherwise fair face of our constitution, less than a score of years ago seemed firmly and irreversibly fastened upon the body politic. So steadily was it entrenched behind constitutional guaranties that there seemed no way by which it could be cured ; and hence it was endured. But God in his mysterious providence permitted those whose rights were thus protected by constitutional guaranties, to make war upon the government which protected them, and in the fratricidal struggle the shackles fell from the limbs of every slave. To-day the sun does not shine in all this mighty republic upon a single bondman. The same constitution and the same laws alike de- clare the equality of all men before the law without reference to previous condition of servitude, race or color. In the physical world, the progress in the arts and sciences has surpassed any conception which we were able to form. Cali- fornia outshines the wealth of India. We traverse the ocean in ships propelled by steam. The vast expanse of our land is covered by a network of iron rails reaching out in every direc- tion. The hourly rate of speed has increased from five miles to thirty, and even to sixty. The world has been girdled with the electric wire. It reposes in safety on the bed of the great deep. On the wings of the lightning it conveys from land to land and shore to shore every moment the intelligence of man's thoughts and man's actions. Each new year has opened up some new improvement or discovery in the world of inventions, which time fails me even to enumerate. And who shall say that a century hence the historian of that day will not be called upon to record the further discovery of wonders far surpassing any conception which we are able to form ? I should hardly be excused if I failed to mention our advance as a nation in the cause of education, but a glance only must suffice. The men who settled New England had been schooled in ad- versity. They had a true estimate of human greatness and human power. They knew that knowledge is power. As last ADDRESS — JUDGE ISAAC W. SMITH. 249 as tlie forest was cleared the scliool was established. With, the establishment of the common school system have come self re- liance, intelligence, enterprise, till our sails whiten every sea, our commerce extends to the most distant ports, our fabrics complete successful with those of more favored lands ; our glorious Union itself has withstood the assaults of foes without, and traitors within, and stands immovably founded upon the intelligence and wisdom of the people. Csesar was the hero of three hundred battles, the conqueror of three millions of people, one million of whom he slew in battle. 15ut long after the in- fluence of his deeds shall have ceased to be felt, will the wisdom of our fathers, through the schools and colleges of our land, move the unnumbered masses that shall come after us. The foundation of prosperity is in an enlightened community. An ignorant people, though inheriting the most favored land on earth, soon sinks into insigni licence. Our extended seacoast invites commerce with every clime. Our fertile valleys and pra- ries bring forth the fruits of the earth hi rich abundance. Her numerous waterfalls and rivers have been harnessed to wheels that turn thousands and tens of thousands of spindles. Cities have sprung up hke exhalations under the magic touch of the magician's wand, and the hum of machinery rises out of the midst of a thrifty, industrious and happy people. The majestic plains and rivers of the West have collected adventurers from every pari of the world. The country to-day exhibits to other nations the unexampled rise and prosperity of a free, self- governed and educated people. To the wisdom of our fathers we are indebted for this rich legacy. With what care should we cherish our institutions of learning, that those who come after us may have reason to bless their fathers as we bless ours. Happily our fathers did not attempt the union of the church and state. It was no mercenary motive that led them to leave old England's shores. Theirs was a strong and enduring love of God, a perfect faith in his promises ; accordingly they hesi- tated not to sever the ties of kindred and nation, to find in the unbroken wilderness of New England a place to worship God " according to the dictates of their own consciences." It docs not excite our wonder, but our admiration — that every infant 250 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. settlement had its sanctuary — the ten thousand church spires reaching upward toward heaven point with unerring accuracy to the source of our prosperity as a nation. Centuries to come will approve and applaud our fathers who worshipped in square pews, and the ministers who preached with subduing power from high pulpits. Such was the first century of the Republic. It has been one of struggle, but one of prosperity. Upon us and our children devolves the privilege and duty of carrying the nation forward to still greater prosperity. Shall we be behind our fathers in declaring for intelligence as against ignorance ; for honesty and ability in our rulers ; and for religion against irreligion ? Our backward look should be but an inspiration to future pro- gress. As we stand to-day, in the presence of the fathers of the republic, may we receive, as men receive life from God, the inspiration which animated them to do and to die. " Thanks be to God alone That oat whole land is one. As at her birth I Echo the grand refrain, From rocky peak to main, That rent is every chain, From south to north." THE PERPETUITY OF THE REPUBLIC. AN ADDRESS BY JOSEPH KIDDER, ESQ , DELIVERED AT MANCHESTER, N. H., JULY 4tH, 1876. Mix. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : — I will say to you that I shall keep you but a very brief space of time. It is natural for any people, on so great a day as the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the nation's existence, to dwell largely upon reminiscences of the past, and glorify those whose fortune it was to shape the government that came into being through their agency. Especially is this true where national existence has proved to be in a particular sense a national blessing. Under such circumstances it would not be wise to check the outburst of patriotic hearts, or restrain in narrow compass the national joy that finds expression in any national form of jubilation. Hence this day, which rounds the full period of one hundred years in the history of the Republic, millions of happy people celebrate the deeds of honored fathers, and enjoy the blessings of a government to which history fur- nishes the world no parallel. Truly it is a day of which we may well be proud, and poets and orators may exhaust the English language in speaking words of praise on this memorable event. But while we rejoice that the events of the century have cul- minated in this grand work of human progress and freedom ; and while we congratulate ourselves on our escape from the numerous perils along the pathway of the Republic, we are ad- monished that the past alone is no guarantee for the future. True it is that history cannot be recalled. It stands immutable as the rocks of the granite State. No fiat of power, no scheme of human ingenuity, can recall it. Call as we will, or lament as we may, there it is, written or unwritten, and it helps to con- tribute to the record of generations passed forever from the face of the earth. It is for us w T ho live to treasure in our hearts 252 OUB NATIONAL JUBILEE. the letters written for our instruction, and press forward to tlie future with earnest endeavors to increase the sum of human happiness in every proper way. In view of these sentiments we might well ask if we are assured that it is a fact that coming years will find the people of America still in possession of the enlightened government and the social and moral comforts that are now the glory of her people. Do our hearts all exult in firm faith that the ship of state shall sail on over the unseen sea that heaves with calm and steady How, or do they deem the shadows that here and there obscure the horizon proclaim that rocks and whirlpools and storms may sooner or later send her down to untold depths with all the precious freight of human souls on board ? On such a day as this I would not check the festivities of the hour, or cause a shadow to rest like a pall upon a single he :rt, but wisdom admonishes us that those only are wise who discern the evil in the distance and adopt measures to resist her fatal advauces. Our Government was founded in patriotism and in a spirit of religious trust. It was not a venture depending upon chance for success or failure, but on the deep and earnest con- viction of men. With firm reliance upon a divine providence for successful preservation in the hazardous enterprise in which they were about to engage, no step did they take or measure did they in- augurate without assuring themselves that the God of political freedom would crown their efforts with the divine approbation. And in this connection it might be proper to say that notwith- standing the perils of the past, there are some things upon which the continued peace and prosperity of our government must depend. Many of these I would discuss if I had time. I mighl speak of the school system of our country and the advantages which education would bring to us ; also of patriotism, without which no people shall ever hold existence for any period of time. I might also allude to the purity of the ballot as abso- lutely essential to free and successful reform. I might also al- lude to that Christian integrity without which all onward pro- gress is impossible. But these things I pass. I congratulate the multitude here assembled to-day on the future prospect of ADDRESS — JOSEPH KIDDER. 253 our country. The skies are bright ; prosperity is cheering ; and I believe that, while occasionally we have doubt and fear, occasionally look upon the dark side of life ; yet I firmly believe that the perpetuity of this government is fixed and established so that it cannot be overturned, and so that, if we are true to the application of the principles on which onr fathers founded these United States, we shall continue to be the bulwark of free- dom. THE YEAR OF JUBILEE. A POEM, BY CLARA B. HEATH. READ BY JOSEPH KIDDER, ESQ., AT MANCHESTER N. H., JULY 4th, 1876. Let us turn o'er this golden day, When even sober fancies play, And weary hearts forget what grieves. Our Country's book — its hundred leaves. A hundred leaves ! a hundred years ! How strange the opening page appears ! A mighty nation then had birth, Whose name was heard in all the earth, Pre-eminent among the free, The sacred home of Liberty. God's blessing brought her wealth and fame, While honors clustered round her name. To-day that nation greeting sends, To all who are the nation's friends ; — Triumphant song her bosom stirs, Glad tidings of great joy are hers ; A queen she sits in glory dressed, — Rejoice with her, for she is blest. Her grateful children far and near, Will hold this day in memory dear ; While thousands more her colors wear, And thank her for her fostering care. Let banners wave, and bells be rung, And many a sweet " Te Deum" sung. This is her year of Jubilee, Which millions thrill with joy to see ; Attained through years of war and woe, A POEM — CLARA B. HEATH. 25o By many a hard and timely blow; But after wounds came healing balm, And after winds and waves a calm. The record of some noble deed. Illumines every page we read. Sometimes we start in glad surprise, Sometimes are mute with wondering eyes ; How manifold her blessings grown! No other land is like our own. Turn quick the pages darkly red With brother's blood, so madly shed ; To-day we pass them softly by, Without a tear ; without a sigh ; Not all in vain the lesson sent, And blood and treasure freely spent, — The foulest stain our banner bore, Thank God, will never shame us more, While North and South more wise appear, For these few leaves which cost so dear : We put them by like troubled dreams, — The present page with glory beams. We hear the wide Atlantic's roar, Or walk the far Pacific shore, Stand awed amid the northern snows, Or languid where the orange blows, Alaska's icy valley's thread, The arid plains of Utah tread, Or seek the western wilds so still, And drink of nature's cup our fill ; Kind, friendly hands our own will grasp, Our country holds us in her clasp, Extending far, from zone to zone, From sea to sea is all our own. Here, mid our grand New England hills ; Where beauty like the dew distills, From every cloud that floats between 2',(i OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Her mountain tops, from every green Encircled lake, whose smiling face Wears year by year an added grace ; Where every stream is clear and bright, And wood and wave both charm the sight ; Our country's record grows more dear, With every swift, succeeding year. Her welfare nearer to the heart, Her honor of our life a part. How cool the Merrimack flows on! It seems to take a softened tone Beside the green and honored grave Of Stark, the patriot, true and brave. His fame is ours— his deeds shall tell How long our heroes fought, how well New Hampshire's sons, with noble grace, In history hold an honored place. Her soldiers were a faithful band, Her statesmen with the foremost stand ; And are at least, had fame world-wide — We point to Websters ; name with pride. Our future who but God can know, Yet all our skies with promise glow. " Our bulwarks are the hearts of men," And strong and true they beat as when, A hundred years ago, their sires Built up ths sacred altar fires. May wisdom be their future guide, With truth and love on either side, — With them what glorious things are wrought Without them labor brings us nought. May God uphold with mighty hand, And bless indeed this happy land. THE NATIONAL UTTERANCES AND ACHIEVE- MENTS OF OUR FIRST CENTQRY. AN ORATION BY PROF. JOHN MERCER LANGSTON, L.L.D. DELIVERED AT PORTSMOUTH, VIRGINIA, JULY 4th, 187(5. Mr. President of the Banneker Lyceum and Fellow-Citizens : I congratulate you upon the name which your association bears. In giving title to your association you honor one who largely unaided, by his own efforts distinguished himself as a scholar, while he made himself in no insignificant sense conspicuous as a philanthropist ; certainly so far as a free and bold advocacy of freedom for his own race discovered his love for mankind. Benjamin Banneker cultivated in his studies those matters of science which pertain to astronomical calculations ; and so thorough and exact were his calculations, as they respected the different aspects of the planets, the motions of the sun and moon, their risings and settings, and the courses of the bodies of planetary systems, as to excite and command the commenda- tion of Pitt, Fox, "Wilberforce, and other eminent men of his time. In 1791 Banneker sent to Thomas Jefferson, then President of the United States, a manuscript copy of his first almanac, en- closing it in a letter, in the closing portions of which he uses the following words : " Suffer me to recall to your mind that time, in which the arms of the British crown were exerted, with eveiy powerful effort, in order to reduce you to a state of servi- tude ; look back, I entreat you, on the variety of dangers to which you were exposed ; reflect on that period in which every human aid appeared unavailable, and in which even hope and fortitude wore the aspect of inability to the conflict, and you cannot but be led to a serious and grateful sense of your mira- culous and providential preservation ; you cannot but acknow- ledge that the present freedom and tranquillity which you enjoy 258 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. you have mercifully received, and that it is the peculiar bless- ing of heaven. This, sir, was a time when you clearly saw into the injustice of a state of slavery, and in which you had just ap- prehensions of the horrors of its condition. It was then that your abhorrence thereof was so excited, that you publicly help forth this true and invaluable doctrine, which is worthy to be recorded and remembered in all succeeding ages : ' We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' " Here was a time in which your tender feelings for your- selves had engaged you thus to declare ; you were then im- pressed with proper ideas of the great violation of liberty, and the free possession of those blessings, to which you were entitled by nature ; but, sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of mankind, and of His equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges which He hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract His mercies, in detain- ing by fraud and violence, so numerous a party of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others, with respect to your- selves." In a very few days after receiving this letter the President made the following reply : " Sir, I thank you sincerely for your letter, and the almanac it contained. Nobody wishes more than I do, to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren talents equal to those of the other colors of men ; and that the appearance of a want of them, is owing mere- ly to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa and America. I can add with truth, that nobody wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising their con- dition, both of their body and mind, to what it ought to be, as far as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circum- stances which cannot be neglected we'll admit. I have taken the liberty of sending your almanac to Monsieur de Condozett, Sec- ORATION PROP. JOHN MERCER LANGSTON. 259 retary of the Acrdeiny of Science at Paris, and member of the Philanthropic Society, because I considered it as a document to which your whole color had a right for their justification, against the doubts which have been entertained of them.'' I make no apology for making this allusion, in this connec- tion, to the man whose memory you honor in the phraseology " Banneker Lyceum ;" nor for referring to his eminence us a scholar, and his bold advocacy in addressing even the author of the Declaration of American Independence, then President of the United States, in such words as to provoke the earnest and manly reply just presented. Let the colored American con- template with pride this brief but interesting chapter which brings the name of the scholarly negro Banneker, in such juxta- position to that of the eminent American statesman, Thomas Jefferson. I also congratulate you upon this vast assembly, brought to- gether under those instincts and promptings of patriotism, ad- miration and gratitude, with which from one end to the other of our country, from sea to sea, our fellow-countrymen meet this day, in hall, in church, like ourselves beneath the green foliage of God's own temple, to call to mind and note the magnificent utterances, the splendid achievements and marvelous progress of our nation made within the first hundred years of its exis- tence. On this occasion, I may not tarry to dwell upon the utter- ances of individuals, however eminent and distinguished. Tt is only of those great national utterances, those judgments of the nation itself, so expressed in that majestic and thrilling voice of a great people, that its echoes never die, that I may speak on this interesting and memorable day ; and of these in the briefest manner. On the4thday of July 1116, one hundred years ago, thirteen colonies with an insignificant population boldly made declaration of their independence of the British crown and their sovereign- ty as a free and independent nation, and to the maintenance of this declaration and their independence, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, mutually pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. The annals of one hun- 260 OtJH NATIONAL JUBILEE. dred years radiant with proofs of the sincerity of this pledge of our Fathers, attest how well, how manfully, how successfully, and triumphantly, our country has maintained herself among the great nations of the earth. Perhaps the history of the world furnishes no document in which individual equality, the first powers of government ; the conditions upon which a people may alter or abolish one govern- ment and institute another, laying its foundations and organiz- ing its powers in such form and upon such principles as to them shall seem most likelv to effect their safety and happiness, with such clearness and force, as our own declaration, the masterpiece of American State papers. Upon its very words, could we se- perate them from the sentiments and doctrines which they em- body we would dwell with a sort of superstitious pride and pleasure. But upon the doctrines, the principles, the senti- ments they contain, we dwell justly with veneration and grate- ful approval. How the school boy, the clergyman, the states- man, all classes with equal pride and emotion repeat the words " when in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the seperate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opin- ions of mankind, requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the seperation. We hold these truths self-evident : that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain in- alienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pur- suit of happiness : that to secure these rights, governments are in- stituted among men deriving their just powers from the con- sent of the governed ; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institue a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." How often these words have been quoted on occasions like this, how thoroughly they have become a part of every Ameri- ORATION PROF. JOHN MERCER LANGSTON. 261 can's very being - , inhaled with the moral atmosphere of every house, no one of us can tell. Nor is it material. It is enough for us to know that as they shape in their influence every act of our nation so they influence and determine largely the conscien- tious conviction and judgment of every elector of our country through whose vote our institutions are supported and main- tained. On the 10th clay of June, 1176, Congress appointed a commit- tee to prepare a declaration, that these colonies are of right and ought to be, free and independent states." This committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. As the declaration was presented by this committee in its original form, it contained among other charges against the King of Great Britain the following — " He has waged war against nations itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people, who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemis- phere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain, determined to keep open a market, where men should be bought and sold. He has prostituted his negative for suppress- ing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce, and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them : thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another." This clause, formidable indeed in the charge presented, but far- reaching and significant in favor of the abolition of slavery was stricken from the declaration, on the suggestion of the state of Georgia. The declaration, however, as a whole is none the less emphatic in favor of the inalienability of man's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and Garrison, Phillips, Smith, Sumner, and their associates, the great apostles of the 262 OITH NATIONAL JUBILEE. American abolition movement did well to plead the cause of the slave, and to claim the equality of the rights of the negro before American law in the name of its principles and teachings. With regard to the courage and heroism, which distinguished the American soldier of our revolutionary period, and the triumphs which attended our armies, I need not speak, all are acquainted with these and to-day as we go back in memory to our-struggle at Lexington, at Bunker Hill, and to the surrender of Burgoyne, our souls are filled with gratitude that the God of battles brought victory to those arms wielded in a struggle for freedom, independence and free institutions. Eight years of conflict, brought us a victory which settled forever our independence and sovereignty, no longer a dream, but a solemn, abiding reality. I wish to bring to your attention and emphasize two things with regard to the articles of confederation, approved the 9th day of July, 1778, in the 3d year of the Independence of America. 1st. These articles are entitled articles of confedera- tion and perpetual union between the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, &c, and in the concluding article thereof, the 2d clause contains these words, "and whereas it has pleased the great Governor of the world to incline the hearts of the Legislatures, we respectively represent in Congress, to approve of, and to authorize us to ratify the said articles of confederation and perpetual union : know ye, that we the un- dersigned delegates, by virtue of the power and authority to use given for that purpose, do, by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said articles of con- federation and perpetual union, and all and singular the mat- ters and things therein contained ; and we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determinations of the United States, in Congress assembled, on all questions which, by the said con- federation, are submitted to them ; and that the articles thereof shall be inviolably observed by the States we respectively represent ; and, that the union be perpetual. Although each State under these Articles retained its sover- ORATION PROF. JOHN MERCER LANGSTON. 263 eignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right not expressly delegated to the United States in Con- gress assembled thus forming as the articles of confederation import, simply a confederacy under the style of the * United States of America,' the union, formed thus was to be perpetual, lasting forever, as is abundantly shown from the words of this document already quoted. The union of these articles, a compact of sovereign States, was to be perpetual. It was not long, however, before the sovereignty of the States was merged, under the Constitution of the United States, in the higher and grander sovereignty of the nation. And thus our Union was made more perfect and perpetual. Let it stand forever ! Concerning the 4th Article of these Articles there is a matter of history which must prove especially interesting to all of us, when, now, our constitutional law has been so amended as to tolerate no discrimination with regard to citizenship predicated upon complexion. When this Article was under consideration a proposition was made to qualify the phrase " free inhabitants," occurring therein, by the insertion of the word " white," so as to make it read " free white inhabitants," etc. Upon due consideration, eleven States voting upon the proposition, it was lost — eight States voting against it, two States in favor of it, while the vote of one State was divided. Early thus in the history of our nation the fathers decided to allow no discrimination among our country, men as to citizenship based upon complexional differences, and nowhere either in the Declaration of Independence, or in the Articles of Confederation is the word white used except in the latter, it is found in the following connection, in Article 9th, " The United States in Congress assembled shall have authority among other things, to agree upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from eaeh State for its quota, in pro- portion to the number of white inhabitants in such State." "Why the word white is used in this connection, I am at a loss to know. It was not certainly because of the color of citizens of African descent. It was certainly not because they were not patriotic, brave, and enduring soldiers. In the revolutionary 264 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. struggles they early demonstrated their fidelity and courage. One of the four first Americans falling, in the Boston massacre of 1770, being a mulatto, Crispus Attucks, whose name is one famous in the annals of that struggle. This word white was certainly not used to discriminate against citizens of African descent prejudicially as to the matter of citizenship. For gen- erally at this time, when emancipated, they became citizens and voters without qualification or condition in the States where they resided. The distinction made here then must have been in the interest of slavery, an institution which from the very first proved itself utterly at war with every interest of the people. Occupying, as we do this day, a high moral plain from which we may retrospect our past, we can appreciate the ordinance of 1787, which, establishing a form of government for our West- ern territories, concludes with sis Articles of compact between the original States and the people of the territories, the same to be unalterable, except by common consent. The first secures entire religious freedom, the second, trial hy jury, the writ of habeas corpus, together with other funda- mental rights usually inserted in Bills of Rights ; the third pro- vides for the encouragement and support of schools, and en- joins good faith towards the Indians ; the fourth places the new States to be formed out of the territory upon an equal foot- ing with the old ones ; the fifth authorizes the future division of the territory into not less than three nor more than five States, each to be admitted into the Uuion when it should con- tain 60,000 free inhabitants ; and the sixth contains the cele- brated anti-slavery proviso introduced by Jefferson, " That there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States, other than in the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." Thousands of noble sons, inhabitants of the States formed of such territory, rejoice this day that no curse of slavery has blighted their toil — that no footsteps of the bondman ever pressed the pathway of their industry. The shouts of other millions, former slaves, uniting with those once their owners and masters, send back the echo of such rejoicing this day in a ORATION — HROF. JOHN MERCER LANGSTON. 265 glad refrain of thanksgiving and joy, that no slave now breathes the air of our country. Chief among the moral triumphs of our age and country stands that act of our nation which emancipates four million of bonds- men ; and inducting them into the body-politic, throws over them the investiture of au equal and impartial citizenship. All honor is due him whose name is written first among the company of noble men, the chief work of whom, the glory of their endeavors, culminates in the emancipation of the American slave. All honor is due the great captain of our forces, who established through the sword, as the fixed law of our nation, the emancipation proclamation of the first day of January, 1863. Henceforth the names of Lincoln and Grant, are justly em- blazoned in our history as the emancipator and defender of our enslaved race. The Constitution of the United States, a document of rare, in many respects matchless, excellence, prior to its modification by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, is now certainly without parallel in the history of mankind, as an enunciation of organic law ; and every American, whatever his political bias or party affihations, must experience special pleasure in knowing that no other nation of ancient or modern times has been given, the genius or the heart to produce such a document, and to establish in accordance there with a government which in its forms and results realizes so nearly our idea of that perfect government, the subjects of which, while they enjoy the amplest possible freedom, pursue their several occupations, assured of the largest protection to lite, liberty and property. As we read and study the great State papers of our nation — The Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Ordinance of 1187, and the Constitution of the United States — and consider the -workings of the Government organ- ized in accordance therewith, in none of its departments, dis- criminating against any of our citizens, native or naturalized, with regard to birthplace, nationality, complexion, or former condition of life, but inviting all to partake alike of the benefits and blessings of free institutions, our hearts swell with gratitude to that beneficient Dispenser of human affairs, who gave our 206 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. fathers wisdom, courage, and success, and who has abundantly blessed their sons in national unity, prosperity and happiness. Of the material greatness of our country — its development of the great industries which distinguish its progress and civil- ization, I can do little more than make a passing allusion. Did I tarry to name simply our achievements in steam navigation, shipbuilding, the building of railroads, the manufacture of rail- road cars, improvements in all kinds of machinery, telegraphy, and printing, I would detain you beyond your patience and endurance. I content myself and trust I satisfy you by saying, the first century of our existence as a nation has witnessed such triumphs in art, science, and industry in our land as has not been vouchsafed in the history of mankind to any other people within such period. In all departments of business — in banking, commerce, agri- culture — we witness improvement of method, implement, and the use of power and skill. In politics, legislation and general reform, our national tri- umphs have been splendid; not less so, however, in the various departments of industry. Of our improvement in all those things that pertain to a well organized system of free common schools, supported by public tax, levied and collected by the general and cordial assent of property holders, I speak with pride. Generally our common school system is so valued, its good results so appreciated, that no considerations pecuniary or other would induce the people to consent to any reduction of taxes, or the doing of anything the tendency of which would be to curtail and destroy the in- fluence of such system. We all value the free common school as at present organized as indispensible to the education and training of the youth of all classes. Many without academic, or collegiate instruction, if not fully, measurably fitted for the pursuit of business or professional walks of life enter thereuj)on directly from our common schools and achieve therein commend- able success. Indeed, our common schools may ba properly enough regarded as the college of the people. No tuition may here be collected; no incidental fees charged; and yet, an edu- cation which furnishes excellent mental discipline, considerable ORATION — PROF. JOHN MERCER LANGSTON. 2G7 knowledge, general and various, together with sound moral training may be secured. Of improvements in methods of instruction, buildings, furni- ture, apparatus, text-books, treatment of pupils, character of teachers, and modes of preparing teachers for their work, I can not speak in detail. Improvements in all these respects are abundant, transcending our most sanguine expectations, of the largest advantage and most satisfactory kind. Contrasting the system and condition of public instruction in France, Holland, Prussia, Germany, Great Britain and other countries with those of the United States of America, J. W. Hoyt, Esq., one of the Commissioners of the Paris Universal Exposition of 1SG7, in his report on education, under the title United States of America, says: " From the earliest settlement of this country by those brave men and women who landed on the rocks of Massachusetts Bay, no less imbued with the spirit of freedom and popular education than the love of God and liberty of conscience, the cause of education has been one of primary interest both to Colonial and Federal governments. A history of the sacrifices and toils by which were established and maintained the school- houses of the ante-revolutionary times of the Colonial period, and a summing up of the truly munificent contributions of the Federal and State authorities since the adoption of the ConstL tutional Government, to the great end of creating a citizenship worthy of our free institutions are sufficient to awaken the am- bition and enthusiasm of the dullest soul." Continuing, he says, " All in all, the original provisions of the government for the education of the people are more liberal than those of any other ; and in connection with the additions arising from regular taxation, and from appropriations made by the States themselves, present the most magnificent financial school basis of the world. The pride with which the American citizen regards this support of common-school instruction is amplified by contemplating the scarcely less abundant endow- ment by which individual wealth has built up the higher grades noticed under the head of Secondary Education." Upon the higher grades of education, the academies, colleges, 208 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. universities and professional schools, I may not dwell. The special character, claims and achievements of such schools we all appreciate. Their growth within the past fifty years has been marked, and through their instrumentality education has received decided impulse and noteworthy educational advan- tages have been gained. Fellow-citizens of Virginia, and by this appellation in this re- generated hour of American freedom I designate all classes and complexions, the class formerly masters, and that formerly slaves, I congratulate you upon the change in an educational point of view which has taken place in your own State during the past ten years. Instead of leaving your sons and daughters in ignorance, to a heritage of crime and degradation, you are establishing a common school system whose advantages and benefits will compensate in popular knowledge, wisdom, and virtue an hundred fold all labor, outlay and sacrifice connected therewith. To-day your schools, a double system, white and black, I trust the day is not distant when they will be one — a common school, stand open, and provision, if not yet ample and entirely satisfactory, has been made measurably for the accom- modation of the children of your State. Your people are show- ing already a wise appreciation of the advantages shown their children in your schools. And I but voice the feeling of your fellow-citizens throughout the country when I bid you a hearty God-speed in your noble work in this behalf. You may rest assured that in so far forth as any schools built and conducted in your State, upon northern liberality, shall hereafter need pecuniary assistance to support and maintain them in their special work, that assistance will not be wanting, when proper appeal is made for it. The people of the north, not more in New England than the great northwest, are deer>ly interested in the educational welfare of your humbler classes. But I must conclude. The progress of our nation during the past' one hundred years, in all those things which concern national greatness and glory is truly wondrous. In social, moral, and industrial growth she has no superior among the great nations of the earth. In statesmanship, jurisprudence, litera- ORATION — PROF. JOHN MERCER LANGSTON. 269 ture, science, arts, and arms, she compares favorably with the foremost of these great nations. If her achievements and progress have been so great in the past, we may contemplate with confidence and pride her ad- vancement in the future. Remaining true to the lessons of freedom, equal rights, justice, humanity and religion taught us by the fathers, the wise men of our country, and the experience of the past, so fraught with warning and admonition, relying upon the God who has so signally blest her, our nation may hope to reach even a larger growth, to show a more splendid progress ; to attain a future more beautiful and magnificent than anything which distinguishes the century which this day closes the first hundred years of our national life. ADDEESS. BY GEN. JOHN A. DIX, EX-GOV. OF NEW YORE:, PRESIDENT OF THE DAY. DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, AT THE ACADEMY OF music, n. y., july 4th, 1876. Fellow-citizens : — One hundred years ago to-day, in our sister city of Philadelphia, a band of courageous and devoted men, at the peril of their lives and everything they held dear, set at defiance one of the most powerful nations of Europe and pro- claimed to the world that the American Colonies, which they represented, were free and independent States, assuming for them " among the powers of the earth,'' to use their own lan- guage, " the separate and equal station to which the laws of na- ture and of nature's God entitle them." The three millions in whose behalf the Declaration of Independence was made are now more than forty millions, and wherever patriotic hearts are to be found— whether in the crowded thoroughfares of cities and towns or in the quietude of rural habitations — they are overflow- ing with gratitude for our prosperity, our good name among the nations, our free institutions, our widespread domain, never again to be pressed by a servile foot, and for our deliverance from the dangers through which we have passed ; above all, the late fearful peril of disunion. You will hear from eloquent lips the story of our trials and our triumphs, and of the fulfill- ment of that memorable prophecy uttered a century and a half ago of the progress of " the star of empire " westward. But first let us listen to the Eev. Dr. Adams, and join him in acknowledging our thankfulness to Almighty God for our preservation during the hundred years that are past, and in fervent supplication for His continued protection and favor through the years that are to come. EISE OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY. AN ORATION DELIVERED BY THE REV. DR. R. S, STORRS, AT THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC, NEW YORK, JULY 4, 187G. Mr. President — Fellow- Citizens : The long-expected day has come, and passing peacefully the impalpable line which separates ages, the Republic completes its hundreth year. The predictions in which affectionate hope gave inspiration to political prudence are fulfilled. The fears of the timid, and the hopes of those to whom our national existence is a menace, are alike disappointed. The fable of the physical world becomes the fact of the political ; and after alternate sunshine and storm, after heavings of the earth which only deepened its roots, and ineffectual blasts of lightning whose lurid threat died in the air, under a sky now raining on it benignant influence, the century-plant of American Independence and popular government bursts into this magnifi- cent blossom of a joyful celebration illuminating the land ! With what desiring though doubtful expectation those whose action we commemorate looked for the possible coming of this day, we know from the records which they have left. With what anxious solicitude the statesmen and the soldiers of the following generation anticipated the changes which might take place be- fore this Centennial year should be reached, we have heard our- selves, in their great and fervent admonitory words. How dim and drear the prospect seemed to our own hearts fifteen years since, when, on the fourth of July 1861, the XXXVHth Congress met at Washington with no representative in either House from any State south of Tennessee and Western Virginia, and when a determined and numerous army, under skillful commanders, approached and menaced the capital and the government — this we surely have not forgotten ; nor how, in the terrible years which followed, the blood and fire, and vapor of smoke, seemed oftentimes to swim as a sea, or to rise as a wall, between our eyes and this anniversary. "It cannot outlast the second generation from those who founded it/' was the exulting conviction of the many who loved 272 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. the traditions and state of monarchy, and who felt them insecure before the widening fame in the world of our prosperous Re- public. "It may not reach its hundredth year," was the deep and sometimes the sharp apprehension of those who felt, as all of us felt, that their own liberty, welfare, hope, with the bright- est political promise of the world, were bound up with the unity and the life of our nation. Never was solicitude more intense, never was prayer to Almighty God more fervent and constant — not in the earliest beginnings of our history, when Indian feroci- ty threatened that history with a swift termination, not in the days of supremest trial amid the Revolution — than in those years when the nation seemed suddenly split asunder, and forces which had been combined for its creation were clenched and rocking back and forth in bloody grapple on the question of its maintenance. The prayer was heard. The effort and the sacrifice have come to their fruitage; and to-day the nation — still one, as at the start, though now expanded over such immense spaces, ab- sorbing such incessant and diverse elements from other lands, developing within it opinions so conflicting, interests so various, and forms of occupation so novel and manifold — to-day the na- tion, emerging from the toil and the turbulent strife, with the earlier and the later clouds alike swept out of its resplendent stellar arch, pauses from its work to remember and rejoice; with exhilarated spirit to anticipate its future; with reverent heart to offer to God its great Te Deum. Not here alone, in this great city, whose lines have gone out into all the earth, and whose superb progress in wealth, in cul- ture, and in civic renown, is itself the most illustrious token of the power and beneficence of that frame of government under which it has been realized; not alone in yonder, I had almost said adjoining, city, whence issued the paper that first an- nounced our national existence, and where now rises the mag- nificent Exposition, testifying for all progressive States to their respect and kindness toward us, the radiant clasp of diamond and opal on the girdle of the sympathies which interweave then- peoples with ours; not alone in Boston, the historic town, first in resistance to British aggression, and foremost in plans for ORATION REV. DR. E. S. STORRS. 273 the new and popular organization, one of whose citizens wrote his name, as if cutting it with a plough-share, at the head of all on our great charter, another of whose citizens was its intrepid and powerful champion, aiding its passage through the Con- gress; not there alone, nor yet in other great cities of the land, but in smaller towns, in villages and hamlets, this day will be kept, a secular Sabbath, sacred alike to memory and to hope. Not only, indeed, where men are assembled, as we are here, will it be honored. The lonely and remote will have their part in this commemoration. Where the boatman follows the wind- ing stream, or the woodman explores the forest shades; where the miner lays down his eager drill beside rocks which guard the precious veins; or where the herdsman, along the sierras, looks forth on the seas which now reflect the rising day, which at our midnight shall be gleaming like gold in the setting sun — there also wiU the day be regarded, as- a day of memorial. The sailor on the sea will note it, and dress his ship in its brightest array of flags and bunting. Americans dwelling in foreign lands will note and keep it. London itself will to-day be more festive because of the event which a century ago shadowed its streets, incensed its Parlia- ment, and tore from the crown of its obstinate King the chiefest jewel. On the boulevards of Paris, in the streets of Berlin, and along the leveled bastions of Vienna, at Marseilles and at Flor- ence, upon the silent liquid ways of stately Venice, in the passes of the Alps, under the shadow of church and obelisk, palace and ruin, which still prolong the majesty of Eome ; yea, fur- ther East, on the Bosphorus, and in Syria ; in Egypt, which writes on the front of its compartment in the great Exhibition, " The oldest people of the world sends its morning- greeting to the youngest nation ;" along the heights behind Bombay, in the foreign hongs of Canton, in the " Islands of the Morning," which found the dawn of their new age in the startling sight of an American squadron entering their bays — everywhere will be those who have thought of this day, and who join with us to greet its coming. No other such anniversary, probably has attracted hitherto 274 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. such general notice. You have seen Rome, perhaps, on one of those stringing April days when the traditional anniversary of the founding of the city fills its streets with civic processions, with military display, and the most elaborate fire- works in Europe ; you may have seen Holland, in 1782, when the whole country bloomed with orange on the three-hundredth anniver- sary of the capture by the sea-beggars of the city of Briel, and of the revolt against Spanish domination which thereupon flashed on different sides into sudden explosion. But these celebrations, and others like them, have been chiefly local. The world outside has taken no wide impression from them. This of ours is the first of which many lands, in different tongues, will have had report. Partly because the world is narrowed in our time, and its distant peoples are made neigh- bors, by the fleeter machineries now in use ; partly because we have drawn so many to our population from foreign lands, while the restless and acquisitive spirit of our people has made them at home on every shore ; but partly, also, and essentially, because of the nature and the relations of that event which we commemorate, and of the influence exerted by it on subsequent history, the attention of men is more or less challenged, in every centre of commerce and of thought, by this anniversary. Indeed it is not unnatural to feel — certainly it is not irrev- erent to feel — that they who by wisdom, by valor, and by sacrifice, have contributed to perfect and maintain the institu- tions which we possess, and have added by death as well as by life to the lustre of our history, must also have an interest in this day ; that in their timeless habitations they remember us beneath the lower circle of the heavens, are glad in our joy and share and lead our grateful praise. To a spirit alive with the memories of the time, and rejoicing in its presage of nobler futures, recalling the great, the beloved, the heroic, who have labored and joyfully died for its coming, it will not seem too fond an enthusiasm to feel that the air is quick with shapes we can- not see, and glows with faces whose light serene we may not catch ! They who counseled in the Cabinet, they who defined and settled the law in decisions of the Bench, they who pleaded with mighty eloquence in the Senate, they who poured out their ORATION — REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 275 souls in triumphant effusion for the liberty which they loved in forum or pulpit, they who gave their young and glorious life as an offering on the field, that government for the people, and by the people, might not perish from the earth — it cannot be but that they too have part and place in this Jubilee of our history ! God make our doings not unworthy of such spectators ! and make our spirit sympathetic with theirs from whom all selfish passion and pride have now forever passed away! The interest which is felt so distinctly and widely in this an- niversary reflects a light on the greatness of the action which it commemi >rai < s. It shows that we do not unduly exaggerate the significance or the importance of that; that it had really large, even world-wide rclations,and contributed an effective and a valu- able force to the furtherance of the cause of freedom, education, humane institutions, and popular advancement, wherever its in- fluence has been felt. Yet when we consider the action itself, it may easily seem but slight in its na' ure, as it was certainly commonplace in its cir- cumstances. There was nothing even picturesque in its sur- roundings, to enlist for it the pencil of the painter, or help to fix any luminous image of that which was done on the popu- lar memory. In this respect it is singularly contrasted with other great and kindred events in general history; with those heroic and fruit- ful actions iu English history which had especially prepared the way for it, and with which the thoughtful student of the past will always set it in intimate relations. Its utter simplicity, as compared with their splendor, becomes impressive. When, five centuries and a half before, on the fifteenth of June, and the following days, in the year of our Lord 1215, the English barons met King John in the long meadow of Eunne- mede, and forced from him the Magna Charta — the strong foun- dation and steadfast bulwark of English liberty, concerning which Mr. Hallam has said in our time that " ah which has been since obtained is little more than as confirmation or commen- tary," — no circumstance was wanting, of outward pageantry, to give dignity, brilliance, impressiveness, to the scene. On the one side was the King, with the Bishops and nobles who at- 276 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. tended him, with the Master of the Templars, and the Papal legate before whom he had lately rendered his homage.* On the other side was the great and determined majority of the barons of England, with multitudes of knights, armed vassals, and retainers, f With them in purpose, and in resolute zeal, were most of those who attended the King. Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the English clergy, was with them; the Bishops of London, "Winchester, Lincoln, Ro- chester, and of other great sees. The Earl of Pembroke, daunt- less and wise, of vast and increasing power in the realm, and not long after to be its Protector, was really at their head. Robert Fitz- Walter, whose fair daughter Matilda the profligate king had forcibly abducted, was Marshal of the army — the "Army of God, and the Holy Church." William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, half-brother of the King, was on the field; the Earls of Albemarle, Arundel, Gloucester, Hereford, Norfolk. Oxford, the great Earl Warenne, who claimed the same right of the sword in his barony which William the Conqueror had had in the kingdom, the Constable of Scotland, Hubert de Burgh, seneschal of Poictou, and many other powerful nobles — de- scendants of the daring soldiers whose martial valor had mas- tered England, Crusaders who had followed Richard at Ascalon and at Jaffa, whose own liberties had since been in mortal peril. Some burgesses of London were present, as well; troubadours, minstrels, and heralds were not wanting; and doubtless there mingled with the throng those skillful clerks whose pens had drawn the great instrument of freedom, and whose training in language had given a remarkable precision to its exact clauses and cogent terms. Pennons and banners streamed at large, and spearheads * May 15, A.D. 1213. f " Quant a ceux qui se trouvaient du cote des barons, il n'est ni neces- saire ni possible de les 6numerer, puisque toute la noblesse d'Angletree reunie en un seul corps, ne pouvait tomber sous le calcul. Lorsque les pretentions desrevoltes eurent ete debattues, le roi Jean, comprenant son inferiorite vis-a-vis des forces de ses barons, accorda sans resistance les lois et libertes qu'on lui dernandait, et les confirma par la cbarte." Chronique de Matt. Paris, trad, par A. Huillard Breholles. Tome Troisieme, pp. 6, 7. ORATION BEV. DR. R. S. STORR8. 277 gleamed, above the host. The June sunshine flashed reflected from inland shield and mascled armor. The terrible quivers of English yeomen hung on their shoulders. The voice of trum- pets, and clamoring bugles, was in the air. The whole scene was vast as a battle, though bright as a tournament ; splendid, but threatening, like burnished clouds, in which lightnings sleep. The king, one of the handsomest men of the time, though cruelty, perfidy, and every foul passion must have left their traces on his face, was especially fond of magnificence in dress ; wearing we are told, on one Christmas occasion, a rich mantle of red satin, embroidered with sapphires and pearls, a tunic of white damask, a girdle lustrous with precious stones, and a baldric from his shoulder, crossing his breast, set with diamonds and emeralds, while even his gloves, as indeed is still indicated on his fine effigy in Worcester cathedral, bore similar ornaments, the one a ruby, the other a sapphire. Whatever was superb, therefore, in that consummate age of royal and baronial state, whatever was splendid in the glitter- ing and grand apparatus of chivalry, whatever was impressive in the almost more than princely pomp of prelates of the Church, — The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth can give,— all this was marshalled on that historic plain in Surrey, where John and the barons faced each other, where Saxon king and Saxon earl had met in council before the Norman had footing in England ; and all combined to give a fit magnificence of setting to the great charter there granted and sealed. The tower of Windsor — not of the present castle and palace, but of the earlier detached fortress which already crowned the cliff, and from which John had come to the field — looked down on the scene. On the one side, low hills enclosed the meadow ; on the other, the Thames flowed brightly by, seeking the capital and the sea. Every feature of the scene was English save one ; but over all loomed, in a portentous and haughty stillness, in the ominous presence of the envoy from Rome, that ubiquitous power surpassing all others, which already had once laid the kingdom under interdict, and had exiled John from 278 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. church and throne, but to which later he had been reconciled, and on which he secretly relied to annul the charter which he was granting. The brilliant panorama illuminates the page which bears its story. It rises still as a vision before one, as he looks on the venerable parchment originals, preserved to our day in the British Museum. If it be true, as Hallam has said, that from that era a new soul was infused into the people of England, it must be confessed that the place, the day, and all the circum- stances of that new birth were fitting to the great and the vital event. That age passed away, and its peculiar splendor of aspect was not thereafter to be repeated. Yet when, four hundred years later, on the .seventh of June,* 1G28, the Petition of Right, the second great charter of the liberties of England, was presented by Parliament to Charles the First, the scene and its accessories were hardly less impressive. Into that law — called a Petition, as if to mask the deadly energy of its blow upon tyranny — had been collected by the skill of its framers all the heads of the despotic perogative which Charles had exercised, that they might all be smitten together, with one tremendous destroying stroke. The king, enthroned in his chair of state, looked forth on those who waited for bis word, as still he looks, with his fore-casting and melancholy face, from the canvas of Van Dyck. Before hini were assembled the nobles of England, in peaceful array, and * Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, Charles I., 1G28-9. Rushworth's Hist. Coll. Charles I. , 625. It is rather remarkable that neither Hume, Clarendon, Hallam, De Lolme, nor Macaulay, mentions this date, though all recognize the capi- tal import mce of the event. It does not appear in even Knight's Popu- lar History of England. Miss Aikin, in her Memoirs of the Court of Charles I., gives it as Jrme 8, [Vol. I, 216]; and Chambers' Encyclo- paedia, which ought to be careful and accurate in regard to the dates of events in English history, says, under the title " Petition of Rights: ' " At length, on both Houses of Parliament insisting on a fuller answer, he pronounced an unqualified assent in the usual form of words, ' Soi* fait comm-e il est desire, ' on the 26th of June, 1628.*' The same statement is repeated in the latest Revised Edition of that Encyclopaedia. Lingard gives the date correctly. ORATION REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 279 not in armor, but with a civil power in their Lands which the older gauntlets could not have held, and with the memories of a long renown almost as visible to themselves and to the king as were the tapestries suspended on the walls. Crowding the bar, behind these descendants of the earlier barons, were the members of the House of Commons, with whom the law now presented to the king had had its origin, and whose boldness and tenacity had constrained the peers, after vain endeavor to modify its provisions, to accept them as they stood. They were the most powerful body of represent- atives of the kingdom that had yet been convened ; possessing a private wealth it was estimated, surpassing three-fold that of the Peers, and representing not less than they the best life, and the oldest lineage, of the kingdom which they loved. Their dexterous, dauntless, and far-sighted sagacity is yet more evident as we look back than their wealth or their breed- ing ; and among them were men whose names will be familiar while England continues. Wentworth was there, soon to be the most dangerous of traitors of the cause of which he was then the champion, but who then appeared as resolute as ever to vindicate the ancient, lawful, and vital liberties of the king- dom ; and Pym was there, the unsurpassed statesman, who, not long afterward was to warn the dark and haughty apos- tate that he never again would leave pursuit of him so long as his head stood on his shoulders. 11 Hampden was there, con- siderate and serene, but inflexible as an oak ; once imprisoned already for his resistance to an unjust taxation, and ready again to suffer and to conquer in the same supreme cause. Sir John Eliot was there, eloquent and devoted, who had tasted also the bitterness of imprisonment, and who after years of its subsequent experience, was to die a martyr in the Tower. Coke was there, seventy-seven years of age, but full of lire as full of fame, whose vehement and unswerving hand had had chief part in framing the Petition. Selden was there, the repute of whose learning was already continental. Sir Francis Seymour, Sir Kobert Phillips, Strode, Hobart, Denzil Holies, and Valentine — such were the commoners ; and there, at the * Welwood's Memorials, quoted iu Forster's Life of Pym, p. 62. 280 ODE NATIONAL JUBILEE. outset of a career not imagined by either, faced the king a silent young member who had come now to his first Parlia- ment at the age of twenty-nine, from the borough of Hunting- don, Oliver Cromwell. In a plain cloth suit he probably stood among his colleagues. But they were often splendid, and even sumptuous, in dress; with slashed doublets, and cloaks of velvet, with flowing collars of rich lace, the swords by their sides, in embroidered belts, with flashing hilts, their very huts jeweled and plumed, the abundant dressed and perfumed hair falling in curls upon their shoulders. Here and there may have been those who still more distinctly symbolized their spirit, with steel corslets, overlaid with lace and rich embroidery. So stood they in the presence, representing to the full the wealth, and genius, and stately civic pomp of England, until the king had pronounced his assent, in the express customary form, to the law which confirmed the popular liberties; and when, on hearing his unequivocal final assent, they burst into loud, even passionate acclamations of victorious joy, there had been from the first no scene more impressive in that venerable Hall, whose history went back to Edward the Confessor. In what sharp contrast with the rich ceremonial and the splendid accessories of these preceding kindred events, appears that modest scene at Philadelphia, from which we gratefully date to-day a hundred years of constant and prosperous na- tional life ! In a plain room, of an unpretending and recent building — the lower east room of what then was a State-house, what since has been known as the "Independence Hall" — in the midst of a city of perhaps thirty thousand inhabitants — a city which pre- served its rural aspect, and the quaint simplicity of whose plan and structures had always been marked among American towns — were assembled probably less than fifty persons to consider a paper prepared by a young Virginia lawyer, giving reasons for a Resolve which the assembly had adopted two days before. They were farmers, planters, lawyers, physicians, surveyors of land, with one eminent Presbyterian clergyman. A majority of tliem had been educated at such schools, or primitive colleges, ORATION REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 281 as then existed on this continent, while a few had enjoyed the rare advantage of training abroad, and foreign travel; but a considerable number, and among them some of the most influ- ential, had had no other education than that which they had gained by diligent reading while at their trades or on their farms. The figure to which our thoughts turn first is that of the au- thor of the careful paper on the details of which the discussion turned. It has no special majesty or charm, the slight tall frame, the sun-burned face, the gray eyes spotted with hazel, the red hah- which crowns the head; but already, at the age of thirty-three, the man has impressed himself on his associates as a master of principles, and of the language in which those prin- ciples find expression, so that his colleagues have left to him, almost wholly, the work of preparing the important Declaration. He wants readiness in debate, and so is now silent; but he lis- tens eagerly to the vigorous argument and the forcible appeals of one of his feUows on the committee, Mr. John Adams, and now and then speaks with another of the committee, much older than himself — a stout man, with a friendly face, in a plain dress, whom the world had already heard something of as Benjamin Franklin. These three are perhaps most prominently before us as we recall the vanished scene, though others were there of fine presence and cultivated manners, and though all impress us as substantial and respectable representative men, however harsh the features of some, however brawny their hands with labor. But certainly nothing could be more unpretending, more desti- tute of pictorial charm than that small assembly of persons for the most part quite unknown to previous fame, and half of whose names it is not probable that half of us in this assembly could now repeat. After a discussion somewhat prolonged, as it seemed at the time, especially as it had been continued from previous days, and after some minor amendments of the paper, toward evening it was adopted, and ordered to be sent to the several States, signed by the president and the secretary; and the simple tran- saction was complete. Whatever there may have been of pro- clamation and bell-ringing appears to have come on subsequent 282 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. days. It was almost a full month before the paper was en- grossed, and signed by the members. It must have been nearly or quite the same time before the news of its adoption had reached the remoter parts of the land. If pomp of circumstances were necessary to make an event like this great and memorable, there would have been others in our own history more worthy far of our commemoration. As matched against multitudes in general history, it would sink into instant and complete insignificance. Yet here, to-day, a hundred years from the adoption of that paper, in a city which counts its languages by scores, and beats with the thread of a million feet, in a country whose enterprise flies abroad over sea and land on the rush of engines not then imagined, in a time so full of exciting hopes that it hardly has leisure to contemplate the past, we pause from aU our toil and traffic, our eager plans and impetuous debate, to commemorate the event. The whole land pauses, as I have said; and some distinct impression of it will follow the sun, wherever he climbs the steep of Heaven, until in all countries it has more or less touched the thoughts of men. Why is this ? is a question, the answer to which should inter- pret and vindicate our assemblage. It is not simply because a century happens to have passed since the event thus remembered occurred. A hundred years are always closing from some event, and have been since Adam was in his prime. There was, of course, some special im- portance in the action then accomplished — in the nature of that action, since not in its circumstances — to justify such long re- cord of it ; and that importance it is ours to define. In the perspective of distance the small things disappear, while the great and eminent keep their place. As Carlyle has said : " A king in the midst of his body-guards, with his trumpets, war- horses, and gilt standard-bearers, will look great though he be little; only some Roman Carus can give audience to satrap am- bassadors, while seated on the ground, with a woolen cap, and supping on boiled pease, like a common soldier."* What was, then, the great reality of power in what was done a hundred years since, which gives it its masterful place in his- tory — makes it Roman and regal amid all its simplicity ? * IJssay on Schiller. Essays : Vol. II., p. 301- ORATION — REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 283 Of course, as the prime element of its power, it was the action of a People, and not merely of persons ; and such action of a People, has always a momentum, a public force, a historic, sig- nificance, which can pertain to no individual arguments and appeals. There are times, indeed, when it has the energy and authority in it of a secular inspiration ; when the supreme soul which rules the world comes through it to utterance, and a thought surpassing man's wisest plan, a will transcending his strongest purpose, is heard in its commanding voice. It does not seem extravagant to say that the time to which our thoughts are turned was one of these. For a century and a half the emigrants from Europe had brought hither, not the letters alone, the arts and industries, or the religious convictions, but the hardy moral and political life, which had there been developed in ages of strenous struggle and work. France and Germany, Holland and Sweden, as well as England, Scotland, and Ireland, had contributed to this. The Austrian Tyrol, the Bavarian highlands, the Bohemian plain, Denmark, even Portugal, had their part in this colonization. The ample domain which here received the earnest immigrants had imparted to them of its own oneness ; and diversities of language race, and custom, had fast disappeared in the govern- ing unity of a common aspiration, and a common purpose to work out through freedom a nobler well-being. The general moral life of this people, so various in origin, so accordant in spirit, had only risen to grander force through the toil and strife, the austere training, the long patience of en- durance, to which it here had been subjected. The exposures to heat, and cold, and famine, to unaccustomed labors, to alternations of climate unknown in the old world, to ma- larial forces brooding above the mellow and drainless recent lands — these had fatally stricken many; but those who sur- vived were tough and robust, the more so, perhaps, because of the perils which they had surmounted Education was not easy, books were not many, and the daily newspaper was unknown; but political discussion had been always going on, and men's minds had gathered unconscious force as they strove with each other, in eager debate, on questions concerning the common 284 OUE NATIONAL JUBILEE. welfare. They bad had much experience in subordinate legis- lation, on the local matters belonging to their care; had ac- quired dexterity in performing public business, and had ofteD had to resist or amend the suggestions or dictates of Royal gov- ernors. For a recent people, dwelling apart from older and conflicting States, they had had a large experience in war, the crack of the rifle being never unfamiliar along the near frontier, where disciplined skill was often combined with savage fuiy to sweep with sword or scar with fire their scattered settle- ments. By every species, therefore, of common work, of discussion endurance, and martial struggle, the descendants of the colon- ists scattered along the American coast had been allied to each other. They were more closely allied than they knew. It needed only some signal occasion, some summons to a sudden heroic decision, to bring them into instant general combina- tion ; and Huguenot and Hollander, Swede, German, and Protestant Portuguese, as well as Englishman, Scotchman, Irishman, would then forget that their ancestors had been dif- ferent, in the supreme consciousness that now they had a com- mon country, and before all else were all of them Americans. That time had come. That consciousness had for fifteen years been quickening in the people, since the " Writs of Assis- tance " had been applid for and granted, in 1761, when Otis, resigning his honorable position under the crown, had flung himself against the alarming innovation with an eloquence as blasting as the stroke of the lightning which in the end destroyed his life. With every fresh invasion by England of their popular liberties, with every act which threatened such invasion by providing opportunity and the instruments for it, the sense of a common privilege and right, of a common inheritance in the country they were fashioning out of the forest, of a common place in the history of the world, had been increased among the colonists. They were plain people, with no strong tenden- cies to the ideal. They wanted only a chance for free growth ; but they must have that, and have it together, though the con- tinent cracked. The diamond is formed, it has sornetini: s been supposed, under a swift enormous pressure, of masses ORATION — REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 285 meeting, and forcing the carbon into a crystal. The ultimate spirit of the American colonists was formed in like manner ; the weight of a reeky continent beneath, the weight of an oppression only intolerable because undefined pressing on it from above. But now that spirit, of inestimable price, reflect- ing light from every angle, and harder to be broken than any- thing material, was suddenly shown in acts and declarations of conventions and assemblies from the Penobscot to the St. Mary's. Any commanding public temper, once established in a people grows bolder, of course, more inquisitive and incentive, more sensible of its rights, more determined on its future, as it comes more frequently into exercise. This in the colonies lately had had been the most significant of all its expressions, up to that point, in the resolves of a popular assemblies that the time had come for a final separation from the kingdom of Great Britain. The eminent Congre'ss of two years before had given it • powerful reinforcement. Now, at last, it entered the representative American assembly, and claimed from that the ultimate word. It found what it sought. The Declaration was only the voice of that supreme, impersonal force, that will of communities, that universal soul of the State. The vote of the colony then thinly covering a part of the spaces not yet wholly occupied by this great State, was not, indeed, at once formally given for such an instrument. It was wisely delayed, under the judicious counsel of Jay, till a pro- vincial Congress could assemble, specially called, and formally authorized, to pronounce the deliberate resolve of the colony ; and so it happened that only twelve colonies voted at first for the great Declaration, and that New York was not joined to the number till five days later. But Jay knew, and all knew, that numerous, wealthy, eminent in character, high in position as were those here and elsewhere in the country — in Massa- chusetts, in Virginia, and in the Carolinas — who were by no means yet prepared to sever their connection with Great Britain, the general and governing mind of the people was fixed upon this, with a decision which nothing could change, with a tenacity which nothing could break. The forces tending to 28G OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. that result had wrought to their development with a steadiness and strength which the stiibbornest resistance had hardly de- layed . The spirit which now shook light and impulse over the land was recent in its precise demand, but as old in its birth as the first Christian settlements ; and it was that spirit — not of one, nor of fifty, not of all the individuals in all the conven- tions, but the vaster spirit which lay behind — which put itself on sudden record through the prompt and accurate pen of Jefferson. He was himself in full sympathy with it, and only by reason of that sympathy c raid give it such consummate expression Not out of books, legal researches, historical inquiry, the careful and various studies of language, came that document ; but out of repeated public debate, out of manifold personal and private discussion, out of his clear sympathetic observation of the changing feeling and thought of men, out of that exquisite personal sensibility to vague and impalpable popular impulses which was in him innately combined with artistic taste, an idea nature, and rare power of philosophical thought. The voice of the cottage as well as the college, of the church as well as the legislative assembly, was in the paper. It echoed the talk of the farmer in home-spun, as well as the classic eloquence of Lee, or the terrible tones of Patrick Henry. It gushed at last from the pen of its writer, like the fountain from the roots of Lebanon, a brimming river when it issues from the rock ; but it was be- cause its sources had been supplied, its fullness filled, by unseen springs ; by the rivulets winding far up among the cedars, and percolating through hidden crevices in the stone ; by melting- snows, whose white sparkle seemed still on the stream ; by fierce rains, with which the basins above were drenched ; by even the dews, silent and wide, which had lain in stillness all night upon the hill. The Platonic idea of the development of the State was thus re- alized here ; lirst Ethics, then Politics. A public opinion, energetic and dominant took its place from the start as the chief instru- ment of the new civilization. No dashing manoeuvre of skillful commanders, no sudden burst of popular passion, was in the Declaration ; but the vast mystery of a supreme and imperative ORATION REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 287 public life, at once diffused and intense — behind all persons, before all plans, beneath which individual wills are exalted, at whose touch the personal mind is inspired, and under whose transcendent impulse the smallest instrument becomes of a terrific force. That made the Declaration ; and that makes it now, in its modest brevity, take its place with Magna Charta and the Petition of Right, as full as they of vital force, and destined to a parallel permanence. Because this intense common life of a determined and mani- fold People was not behind them, other documents, in form similar to this, and in polish and cadence of balanced phrase perhaps its superiors, have had no hold like that which it keeps on the memory of men. What papers have challenged the at- tention of mankind within the century, in the stately Spanish tongue, in Mexico, New Granada, Venezuela, Bolivia, or the Argentine Republic, which the world at large has now quite forgotten ! How the resonant proclamations of German or of French Republicans, of Hungarian or Spanish revolutionists and patriots, have vanished as sound absorbed in the air ! Eloquent, persuasive, just, as they were, with a vigor of thought, a fervor of passion, a fine completeness and symmetry of expression, in which they could hardly be surpassed, they have now only a literary value. They never became great general forces. They were weak, because they were personal ; and history is too crowded, civilization is too vast, to take much im- pression from occasional documents. Only then is a paper. of secular force, or long remembered, when behind it is the ubi- quitous energy of the popular will, rolling through its words in vast diapason, and charging its clauses with tones of thunder. Because such an energy was behind it, our Declaration had its majestic place and meaning; and they who adopted it saw nowhere else So rich advantage of a promised glory, As smiled upon the forehead of their action. Because of that, we read it still, and look to have it as audible as now, among the dissonant voices of the world, when other generations, in long succession, have come and gone ! But further, too, it must be observed that this paper, adopted 288 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. a hundred years since, was not merely the declaration of a Peo- ple, as distinguished from eminent and cultured individuals — a confession before the world of the public State-faith, rather than a political thesis — but it was also the declaration of a People which claimed for its own a great inheritance of equitable laws, and of practical liberty, and which now was intent to enlarge and enrich that. It had roots in the past, and a long genealogy; and so it had a vitality inherent, and an immense energy. They who framed it went back, indeed, to first principles. There was something philosophic and ideal in their scheme, as always there is when the general mind is deeply stirred. It was not superficial. Yet they were not undertaking to establish new theories, or to build their state upon artificial plans and abstract speculations. They were simply evolving out of the past what therein had been latent; were liberating into free exhibition and unceasing activity, a vital force older than the history of their colonization, and wide as the lands from which they came. They had the sweep of vast impulses behind them. The slow tendencies of centuries came to sudden consummation in their Declaration; and the force of its impact upon the af- fairs and the mind of the world was not to be measured by its contents alone, but by the relation in which these stood to all the vehement discussion and struggle of which it was the latest outcome. This ought to be, always, distinctly observed. The tendency is strong, and has been general, among those who have introduced great changes in the government of states, to follow some plan of political, perhaps of social innovation, which enlists their judgment, excites their fancy, and to make a comely theoretic habitation for the national household, rather than to build on the old foundations — expanding the walls, lift- ing the height, enlarging the doorways, enlightening with new windows the halls, but still keeping the strength and renewing the age of an old familiar and venerated structure. You re- member how in France, in 1789, and the following years, the schemes of those whom Napoleon called the " ideologists " suc- ceeded each other, no one of them gaining a permanent suprema- ORATION REV. DR. R. S. STORES. 289 cy, though each included important elements, till the armed consulate of 1799 swept them all into the air, and put in place of them one masterful genius and ambitious will. You remem- ber how in Spain, in 1812, the new Constitution proclaimed by the Cortes was thought to inaugurate with beneficent provisions a wholly new era of development and progress; yet how the history of the splendid peninsula, from that day to this, has been but the record of a struggle to the death between the Old and the New, the contest as desperate, it would seem, in our time as it was at the first. It must be so, always, when a preceding state of society and government, which has got itself established through many generations, is suddenly superseded by a different fabric, how- ever more evidently conformed to right reason. The principle is not so strong as the prejudice. Habit masters invention. The new and theoretic shivers its force on the obstinate coher- ence of the old and the established. The modern structure fails and is replaced, while the grim feudal keep, though scarred and weather-worn, the very cement seeming gone from its walls, still scowls defiance at the red right-hand of the lightning it- self. It -was no such rash speculative change wdiich here was at- tempted. The People whose deputies framed our Declaration were largely themselves descendants of Englishmen ; and those who were not, had lived long enough under English institutions to be impressed with their tendency and spirit. It was there- fore only natural that even when adopting that ultimate mea- sure which severed them from the British crown, they should retain all that had been gained in the mother-land through cen- turies of endurance and strife. They left nothing that was good ; they abolished the bad, added the needful, and develop- ed into a rule for the continent the splendid precedents of great former occasions. They shared still the boast of Englishmen that their constitution " has no single date from which its dura- tion is to be reckoned," and that " the origin of the English law is as undiscoverable as that of the Nile." They went back themselves, for the origin of their liberties, to the most ancient muniments of English freedom. Jefferson had affirmed, in 290 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. 1774, that a primitive charter of American Independence lay in tlie fact that as the Saxons had left their native wilds in the North of Europe, and bad occupied Britain — the country which they left asserting over them no further control, nor any de- pendence of them upon it — so the Englishmen coming hither had formed, by that act, another state, over which Parliament had no rights, in which its laws were void till accepted.* But while seeking for their liberties so archaic a basis, neither he nor his colleagues were in the least careless of what subse- quent times had done to complete them. There was not one element of popular right, which had been wrested from crown and noble in any age, which they did not keep ; not an equitable rule, for the transfer or the division of property, for the pro- tection of personal rights, or for the detection and punishment of crime, which was not precious in their eyes. Even Chancery jurisdiction they widely retained, with the distinct tribunals, derived from the ecclesiastical courts, for probate of wills ; and English technicalities were maintained in their courts, almost as if they were sacred" things. Especially that equality of civil rights among all commoners, which Hallam declares the most prominent characteristic of the English Constitution — the source of its permanence, its improvement, and its vigor — they perfectly preserved ; they only more sharply affirmatively declared it. Indeed, in renouncing their allegiance to the king, and putting the United Colonies in his place, they felt them- selves acting in intimate harmony with the spirit and drift of the ancient constitution. The Executive here was to be elective, not hereditary, to be limited and not permanent in the term of his functions ; and no established peerage should exist. But each State retained its governor, its legislature, generally in two houses, its ancient statute and common law ; and if they had been challenged for English authority for their attitude toward the crown, they might have replied in the words of Bracton, the Lord Chief-Justice five hundred years before, under the reign of Henry the Third, that " the law makes the king ;" " there is no king, where will, and not lav>, bears rule ;" "if the king were * Works, Vol I. p. 125. ORATION — REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 291 without a bridle, that is the law, they ought to put a bridle upon him."* They might have replied in the words of Fox, speak- ing in Parliament, in daring defiance of the temper of the House, but with many supporting him, when he said that in declaring Independence, they " had done no more than the English had done against James the Second."f They had done no more ; though they had not elected another king in place of him whom they renounced. Thoy had taken no step so far in advance of the then existing English Constitution as those which the Parliament of 1640 took in advance of the previous Parliaments which Charles had dis- solved. If there was a right more rooted than another in that Constitution, it was the right of the people which was taxed to have its vote in the taxing legislature. If there was anything more accordant than another with its historic temper and tenor, it was that the authority of the king was determined when his rule became tyrannous. Jefferson had but perfectly expressed the doctrine of the lovers of freedom in England for many gen- erations, when he said in his Summary view of the Rights of of America, in 1774, that " the monarch is no more than * Ipse autem rex, non debet esse sub homine, sed sub Deo et sub Lege, quia Lex facit regem. Attribuat igiiur rex Legi quod Lex attribuit ei, Vidi licet dominationcm et potestatem, non est enim rex ubi dominatur voluntas et non Lex. Do Leg. et Cons. Angliae ; Lib. I., cap 8, P. 5. Rex autem habet superioreni, Deum. Item, Legem, per quam factus est rex. Item, curiam suam, videlicet comites, Bai ones, quia, comites dicuntur quasi socii regis, tt qui habet socium habet magistrum ; et idi o si rex merit sine fraeuo, i. e sine Lege, debent ei fraenum ponere ; etc. Lib. II., cap. 1G. P. :5. The following is still more explicit : " As the head of a body natural cannot change its nerves and sinews, cannot deny to the several parts their proper energy, their due proportion and ailment of blood ; neither can a King, who is the head of a body politic, change the laws thereof, nor take from the people what is theirs by right, against their consent. * For he is appointed to protect his subjects in their lives, properties, and laws ; for this very end and purpose he has the delegation of power from the people, and he has no just claim to any other power but this." Sir John Fortescue's Treatise, De Laudibus Legum Angliae, c. 9, (about A. D. 1470,) quoted byHallam, Mid. Ages, chap. VIII., partllL t Speech of October 31, 1776 : "The House divided en the Amend ment. Yeas, 87 ; nays, 242." 292 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. the chief officer of the people, appointed by the laws, and cir- cumscribed with definite powers, to assist in working the great machine of government, erected for their use, and consequently subject to their superintendence;" that "kings are the ser- vants, not the proprietors of the people ;" and that a nation claims its rights, " as derived from the laws of nature not as the gift of their chief magistrate." * That had been the spirit, if not as yet the formulated doc- trine, of Ealeigh, Hampden, Eussell, Sydney — of all the great leaders of liberty in England. Milton had declared it, in a prose as majestic as any passage of the Paradise Lost. The Commonwealth had been built on it ; and the whole Kevolu- tion of 1688. And they who now framed it into their perman- ent organic law, and made it supreme in the country they were shaping, were in harmony with the noblest inspirations of the past. They were not innovating with a rash recklessness. They were simply accepting and re-affirming what they had learned from luminous events and illustrous men. So their work had a dignity, a strength, and a permanence which can never belong to mere fresh speculation. It interlocked with that of multitudes going before. It derived a virtue from every field of struggle in England ; from every scaffold, hal- lowed by free and consecrated blood ; from every hour of great debate. It was only the complete development into law, for a separated people, of that august ancestral liberty, the germs of which had preceded the Heptarchy, the gradual definition and establishment of which had been the glory of English history. A thousand years brooded over the room where they asserted hereditary rights. Its walls showed neither portraits nor mottoes ; but the Kaiser-saal at Frankfort was not hung around with such recollections. No titles were worn by those plain men ; but there had not been one knightly soldier, or one * Eulers are no more than, attorneys, agents, trustees, for the people, and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wan- tonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and trustees. — John Adams. Dissertation on Canon and Feu- dal Law ; 1765. Works : Vol. III., pp. 456-7. ORATION REV. DR. R. S. STORES. 293 patriotic and prescient statesman, standing for liberty in the splendid centuries of its English growth, who did not touch them with unseen accolade, and bid them be faithful. The pajDer which they adopted, fresh from the pen of its young author, and written on his hired pine table, was already in es- sential life, of a venerable age ; and it took immense impulse, it derived an instant and vast authority, from its relation to that undying past in which they too had grand inheritance, and from which their public life had come. Englishmen themselves now recognize this, and often are proud of it. The distinguished representative of Great Britain at Washington may think his government, as no doubt he does, superior to ours ; but his clear eye cannot fail to see that Eng- lish liberty was the parent of ours, and that the new and broader continent here opened before it, suggested that expansion of it which we celebrate to-day. His ancestors, like ours, helped to build the Kepublic ; and its faithfulness to the past, amid all reformations, was one great secret of its earliest triumph, has been one source, from that day to this, of its enduring and prosperous strength. The Congress, and the People behind it, asserted for them- selves hereditary liberties, and hazarded everything in the purpose to complete them. But they also affirmed, with em- phasis and effect, another right, more general than this, which made their action significant and important to other peoples, which made it, indeed, a signal to the nations of the right of each to assert for itself the just prerogative of forming its gov- ernment, electing its rulers, ordaining its laws, as might to it seem most expedient. Hear again the immortal words : " We hold these truths to be self-evident ; * * that to secure these [unalienable] rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to altar or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations in such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.'' This is what the party of Bentham called " the assumption of 294 oil; NATIONAL JUBILEE. natural rights, claimed without the slightest evidence of their existence, and supported by vague and declamatory generalities." This is what we receive as the decisive and noble declaration, spoken with the simplicity of a perfect conviction, of a natural right as patent as the continent ; a declaration which chaUenged at once the attention of mankind, and which is now practically assumed as a premise in international relations and public law. Of course it was not a new discovery. It was old as the earliest of political philosophers ; as old, indeed, as the earliest communities, which, becoming established in particular loca- tions, had there developed their own institutions, and repelled with vehemence the assaults that would change them. But in the growth of political societies, and the vast expansion of im- perial states, by the conquest of those adjacent and weaker, this right, so easily recognized at the outset, so germane to the instincts, so level with the reason, of every community, had widely passed out of men's thoughts ; and the power of a con- quering state to change the institutions and laws of a people, or impose on it new ones, — the power of a parent state to shape the forms and prescribe the rules of the colonies which went from it, — had been so long and abundantly exercised, that the very right of the people, thus conquered or colonial, to consult its own interests in the frame of its government, had been almost forgotten. It might be a high speculation of scholars, or a charming dream of political enthusiasts. But it was not a maxim for the practical statesman ; and whatever its correctness as an ideal principle, it was vain to expect to see it established in a world full of kings who claimed, each for himself, an authority from God, and full of states intent on grasping and governing by their law adjacent domains. The revolt of the Netherlands against Span- ish domination had been the one instance in modern history in which the inherent right of a People to suit itself in the frame of its government had been proclaimed, and then maintained ; and that had been at the outset a paroxysmal revolt, against tyranny so crushing, and cruelties so savage, that they took it out of the line of examples. The Dutch Republic was almost as excep- ORATION — REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 295 tional, through the fierce wickedness which had crowded it into being, as was Switzerland itself, on the Alpine heights. For an ordinary state to claim self-regulation, and found its govern, ment on ;t Plebiscit, was to contradict precedent, and to set at defiance European tradition. Our fathers, however, in a somewhat vague way, had held from the start that they had right to an autonomy ; and that acts of Parliament, if not appointments of the crown, took pro- per effect upon these shores only by reason of their assent. Their characters were held to confirm this doctrine. The con- viction, at first practical and instinctive, rather than theoretic, had grown with their growth, and had been intensified into posi- tive affirmation and public exhibition as the British rule im- pinged more sharply on their interests and their hopes. It had finally become the general and decisive conviction of the colo- nics. It had spoken already in armed resistance to the troops of the King. It had been articulated, with gathering emphasis, in many resolves of assemblies and conventions. It was now, finally, most energetically, set forth to the world in the great Declaration ; and in that utterance, made general, rot particu- lar, and founding the rights of the people in this country on principles as wide as humanity itself, there lay an appeal to every nation : — an appeal whose words took unparalleled force, were illuminated and made rubrical, in the fire and blood of the following war. When the Emperor Ferdinand visited Innsbruck, that beauti- ful town of the Austrian Tyrol, in 1838, it is said that the in- habitants wrote his name in immense bonfires, along the sides of the precipitous hills which shelter the town. Over a space of four or five miles extended that colossal illumination, till the heavens seemed on fire in the far-reflected upstreaming glow. The right of a people, separated from others, to its own institu- tions — our fathers wrote this in lines so vivid and so large that the whole world could see them ; and they followed that writing with the consenting thunder* of so many cannon that even the lands across the Alantic were shaken and filled with the long reverberation. The doctrine had, of course, in every nation, its two-fold in- 296 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. ternal application, as well as its front against external powers. On the one hand it swept with destroying force against the nation, so long maintained, of the right of certain families in the world, called Hapsburg, Bourbon, Stuart, or whatever, to govern the rest; and wherever it was received it made the imagined divine right of kings an obsolete and contemptible fiction. On the other hand, it smote with equal energy against the pretensions of any minority within the state — whether banded together by the ties of descent, or of neighborhood in location, or of common opinion, or supposed common interest ■ — to govern the rest; or even to impair the established and para- mount government of the rest by separating themselves organ- ically from it. It was never the doctrine of the fathers that the people of Kent, Cornwall, or Lincoln, might sever themselves from the rest of England, and, while they had their voice and vote in the public councils, might assert the right to govern the whole, un- der threat of withdrawal if their minor vote were not suffered to control. They were not seeking to initiate anarchy, and to make it thenceforth respectable in the world by support of their suffrages. They recognized the fact that the state exists to meet permanent needs, is the ordinance of God as well as the family; and that He has determined the bounds of men's habi- tation, by rivers, seas, and mountain chains, shaping countries as well as continents into physical coherence, while giving one man his birth on the north of the Pyrenees, another on the south, one on the terraced banks of the Rhine, another in Eng- lish meadow or upland. They saw that a common and fixed habitation, in a country thus physically defined, especially when combined with community of descent, of permanent public in- terest, and of the language on which thought is interchanged— that these make a People; and such a People, as a true and abiding body-politic, they affirmed had right to shape its gov- ernment, forbidding others to intermeddle. But it must be the general mind of the People which deter- mined the questions thus involved ; not a dictating class within the state, whether known as peers or associated commoners, whether scattered widely, as one among several political parties, ORATION REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 297 or grouped together in some one section, and having a special interest to encourage. The decision of the general public mind, as deliberately reached, and authentically declared, that must be the end of debate ; and the right of resistance, or the right of division, after that, if such right exist, it is not to be vin- dicated from their Declaration. Any one who thought such government by the whole intolerable to him was always at lib- erty to expatriate himself, and find elsewhere such other institu- tions as he might prefer. But he could not tarry, and still not submit. He was not a monarch, without the crown, before whose contrary judgment and will the public councils must be dumb. "While dwelling in the land, and having the same op- portunity with others to seek the amendment of what he dis- approved, the will of the whole was binding upon him and that obligation he could not vacate by refusing to accept it. If one could not, neither could ten, nor a hundred, nor a million, who still remained a minority of the whole. To allow such a right would have been to make government transparently impossible. Not separate sections only, but coun- ties, townships, school districts, neighborhoods, must have the same right ; and each individual, with his own will for his final law, must be the complete ultimate State. It was no such disastrous folly which the fathers of our Re- public affirmed. They ruled out kings, princes, peers, from any control over the People ; and they did not give to a transient minority, wherever it might appear, on whatever question, a greater privilege, because less defined, than that which they jealously withheld from these classes. Such a tyranny of irre- sponsible occasional minorities would have seemed to them only more intolerable than that of classes, organized, permanent, and limited by law. And when it was affirmed by some, and silently feared by many others, that in our late immense civil war the multitudes who adhered to the old Constitution had forgotton or discarded the principles of the earlier Declaration, those assertions and fears were alike without reason. The Peo- ple which adopted that Declaration, when distributed into col- onies, was the People which afterward, when compacted into states, established the Confederation of 1781 — imperfect enough, 29S OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. but whoso abiding renown it is that under it the war was ended It was the same People which subsequently framed the supreme Constitution. " We, the people of the United States," do ordain and establish the following Constitution, — so runs the majestic and vital instrument. It contains provisions for its own emendation. When the people will, they may set it aside, and put in place of it one wholly different ; and no other nation can intervene. But while it continues, it, and the laws made nor- mally under it, are not subject to resistance by a portion of the people, conspiring to direct or limit the rest. And whensoever any pretension like this shall appear, if ever again it does appear it will undoubtedly as instantly appear that, even as in the past so in the future, the people whose our government is, and whose complete and magnificent domain God has marked out for it, will subdue resistance, compel submission, forbid secession, though it cost again, as it cost before, four years of war, with treasure uncounted and inestimable life. The right of a People upon its own territory, as equally against any classes within it or any external powers, this is the doc- trine of our Declaration. We know how it here has been'applied, and how settled it is upon these shores for the time to come We know, too, something of what impression it instantly made upon the minds of other peoples, and how they sprang to greet and accept it. In the fine image of Bancroft, " the astonished nations, as they read that all men are created equal, started out of their lethargy, like those who have been exiles from child- hood, when they suddenly hear the dimly-remembered accents of their mother-tongue."* The theory of scholars had now become the maxim of a State. The diffused intellectual nebulous light had got itself concen- trated into an orb ; and the radiance of it, penetrating and hot, shone afar. You know how France responded to it ; with pas- sionate speed seeking to be rid of the terrific establishments in church and state which had nearly crushed the life of the peo- ple, and with a beautiful though credulous unreason trying to lift, by the grasp of the law, into intelligence and political ca- pacity the masses whose training for thirteen centuries had been * Vol. VIII. , p. 473. OKATION — REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 299 despotic. No operation of natural law was any more certain than the failure of that too daring experiment. But the very failure involved progress from it ; involved, undoubtedly, that ultimate success which it was vain to try to extemporize. Cer- tainly the other European powers will not again intervene, as they did, to restore a despotism which France has abjured, and with foreign bayonets to uphold institutions which it does not desire. Italy, Spain, Germany, England — they are not Repub- lican in the form of their government, nor as yet democratic in the distribution of power. But each of them is as full of this organific, self-demonstrating doctriue, as is our own land ; and England would send no troops to Canada to compel its submis- sion if it should decide to set up for itself. Neither Italy nor Spain would maiutaiu a monarchy a moment longer than the general mind of the country preferred it. Germany would be fused in the fire of one passion if any foreign nation whatever should assume to dictate the smallest change in one of its laws. The doctrine of the proper prerogative of kings, derived from God, which in the last century was more common in Europe than the doctriue of tho centrality of the sun in our planetary system, is now as obsolete among the intelligent as are the epi- cycles of Ptolemy. Every government expects to stand hence- forth by assent of the governed, and by no other claim of right. It is strong by beneficence, not by tradition; and at the height of its military successes it circulates appeals, and canvasses for ballots. Revolution is carefully sought to be averted, by timely and tender amelioration of the laws. The most progressive and liberal states are most evidently secure; while those which stand, like old olive-trees at Tivoli, with feeble arms supported on pillars, and hollow trunks filled up with stone, are palpably only tempting the blast. An alliance of sovereigns, like that called the Holy, for reconstructing the map of Europe, and par- celling out the passive peoples among separate governments, would to-day be no more impossible than would Charlemagne's plan for reconstructing the empire of the West. Even Murad, Sultan of Turkey, now takes the place of Abdul the deposed, " by the grace of God, and the will of the people;" and that ac- complished and illusti-ious Prince, whose empire under the 300 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Southern Cross rivals our own in its extent, and most nearly approaches it on this hemisphere in stability of institutions and in practical .freedom, has his surest title to the throne which he honors, in his wise liberality, and his faithful endeavor for the good of his people. As long as in this he continues, as now, a recognized leader among the monarchs — ready to take and seek suggestions from even a democratic Republic — his throne will be steadfast as the water-sheds of Brazil; aud while his succes- sors maintain his spirit, no domestic insurrection will test the question whether they retain that celerity in movement with which Dom Pedro has astonished Americans. It is no more possible to reverse this tendency toward popu- lar sovereignty, and to substitute for it the right of families, classes, minorities, or of intervening foreign states, than it is to arrest the motion of the earth, and make it swing the other way in its annual orbit. In this, at least, our fathers' Declaration has made its impression on the history of mankind. It was the act of a People, and not of persons, except as these represented and led that. It was the act of a People, not start- ing out on new theories of government, so much as developing into forms of law and practical force a great and gradual inher- itance of freedom. It was the act of a Peoj)le, declaring for others, as for itself, the right of each to its own form of govern- ment without interference from other nations, without restraint by privileged classes. It only remains, then, to ask the question how far it has con- tributed to the peace, the advancement, and the permanent, welfare, of the People by which it was set forth ; of other nations which it has affected. And to ask this question is almost to answer it. The answer is as evident as the sun in the heavens. It certainly cannot be affirmed that we in America, any more than persons or peoples elsewhere, have reached as yet the ideal state, of private liberty combined with a perfect public order, or of culture complete, and a supreme character. The political world, as well as the religious, since Christ was on earth, looks forward, not backward, for its millennium. That Golden Age is still to come which is to shine in the perfect ORATION REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 301 splendor reflected i'roni Him who is ascended ; and no prophecy tells us how long before the advancing race shall reach and cross its glowing marge, or what long effort, or what tumults of battle are still to precede. In this country, too, there have been immense special im- pediments to hinder wide popular progress in things which are highest. Onr people have had a continent to subdue. They have been, from the start, in constant migration. Westward, from the counties of the Hudson and the Mohawk, around the lakes, over the prairies, across the great river — westward still, over alkali plains, across terrible canons, up gorges of the mountains where hardly the wild goat could find footing — westward always, till the Golden Gate opened out on the sea which has been made ten thousand miles wide, as if nothing less could stop the march — this has been the popular move- ment, from almost the day of the great Declaration. To-mor- row's tents have been pitched in new fields ; and last year's houses await new possessors. With such constant change, such wide dislocation of the mass of the people from early and settled home-associations, and with the incessant occupation of the thoughts by the great physical problems presented — not so much by any struggle for existence, as by harvests for which the prairies waited, by mills for which the rivers clamored, by the coal and the gold which offered themselves to the grasp of the miner — it would not have been strange if a great and dangarous decadence had occurred in that domestic and private virtue of which Home is the nur- sery, in that generous and reverent public spirit which is but the effluence of its combined rays. It would have been wholly too much to expect that under such influences the highest pro- gress should have been realized, in speculative thought, in ar- tistic culture, or in the researches of pure science. Accordingly, we find that in these departments not enough has been accomplished to make our progress signal in them, though here and there the eminent souls " that are like stars and dwell apart " have illumined themes highest with their high in- terpretation. But History has been cultivated among us, with an enthusiasm, to an extent, hardly, I think, to have been an- 302 OUR NATIONAL JTJfelLEE. ticipated among a people so recent and, expectant ; and Prescott, Motley, Irving, Ticknor, with him upon whose splendid page all American history has been amply illustrated, are known as fa- miliarly and honored as highly in Europe as here. We have had as well distinguished poets, and have them now ; to whom the nation has been responsive ; who have not only sung them- selves, but through whom the noblest poems of the Old World have come into the English tongue, rendered in fit and perfect music, and some of whose minds, blossoming long ago in the solemn or beautiful fancies of youth, with perennial energy still ripen to new fruit as they near or cross their four-score years. In Medicine, and Law, as well as in Theology, in Fiction, Bi- ography, and the vivid Narrative of exploration and discovery, the people whose birth-day we commemorate has added some- thing to the possession of men. Its sculptors and painters have won high places in the brilliant realm of modern art. Publicists like Wheaton, jurists like Kent, have gained a celebrity reflect- ing honor on the land ; and if no orator, so vast in knowledge, so profound and discursive in philosophical thought, so affluent in imagery, and so glorious in diction, as Edmund Burke, has yet appeared, we must remember that centuries were needed to produce him elsewhere, and that any of the great Parliamentary debaters, aside from him, have been matched or surpassed in the hearing of those who have hung with rapt sympathetic at- tention on the lips of Clay, or of Bufus Choate, or have felt themselves listening to the mightiest mind which ever touched theirs when they stood beneath the imperial voice in which Webster spoke. In applied science there has been much done in the country j for which the world admits itself our grateful debtor. I need not multiply illustrations of this, from locomotives, printing- presses, sewing machines, revolvers, steam-reapers, bank-locks. One instance suffices, most signal of all. When Morse, from Washington, thirty-two years ago, sent over the wires his word to Baltimore, " What hath God wrought," he had given to all the nations of mankind an instru- ment the most sensitive, expansive, quickening, which the world yet possesses. He had bound the earth in electric network. ORATION — REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 303 England touches "India to-day,, and France Algeria, while we are in contact with all the continents, upon those scarcely per- ceptible nerves. The great strategist, like Yon Moltke, with these in his hands, from the silence of his office directs cam- paigns, dictates marches, wins victories ; the statesman in the cabinet inspires and regulates the distant diplomacies ; while the traveler in any port or mart is by the same marvel of me- chanism in instant communication with all centres of commerce. It is certainly not too much to say that no other invention of the world in this century has so richly deserved the medals, crosses, and diamond decorations, the applause of senates, the gifts of kings, which were showered upon its author, as did this invention, which finally taught and utilized the lightnings whose nature a signer of the great Declaration had made apparent. But after all it is not so much in special inventions, or in emi- nent attainments made by individuals, that we are to find the answer to the question, " What did that day a hundred years since accomplish for us ?" Still less is it found in the progress we have made in outward wealth and material success. This might have been made, approximately at least, if the British supremacy had here continued. The prairies would have been as productive as now, the mines of copper and silver and gold as rich and extensive, the coal-beds as vast, and the cotton-fields as fertile, if we had been born the subjects of the Georges, or of Victoria. Steam would have kept its propulsive force, and sea and land have been theatres of its triumph. The river would have been as smooth a highway for the commerce which seeks it ; and the leap of every mountain stream would have given as swift and constant a push to the wheels that set spindles and saws in motion. Electricity itself would have lost no property, and might have become as completely as now the fire-winged messenger of the thought of mankind. But what we have now, and should not have had except, for that paper which the Congress adopted, is the general and in- creasing popular advancement in knowledge, vigor, as I believe in moral culture, of which our country has been the arena, and in which lies its hope for the future. The independence of the nation has reacted, with sympathetic force, on the personal life 304 OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. /" which the nation includes. It has made men more resolute, aspiring, confident, and more susceptible to whatever exalts. The doctrine that all by creation are equal, — not in respect of physical force or of mental endowment, of means for culture or inherited privilege, but in respect of immortal faculty, of duty to each other, of right to protection and to personal development, — this has given manliness to the poor, enterprise to the weak, a kindling hope to the most obscure. It has made the individu- als of whom the nation is composed more alive to the forces which educate and exalt. There has been incessant motive, too, for the wide and con stant employment of these forces. It has been felt that, as th6 People is sovereign here, that People must be trained in mind and spirit for its august and sovereign function. The es tablishment of common-schools, for a needful primary secular training, has been an instinct of Society, only recognized and repeated in provisions of statutes. The establishment of higher schools, classical and general, of colleges, scientific and profes- sional seminaries, has been as well the impulse of the nation, and the furtherance of them a care of governments. The immense expansion of the press in this country has been based fundamentally upon the same impulse, and has wrought with beneficent general force in the same direction. Religious instruction has gone as widely as this distribution of secular knowledge. It used to be thought that a Church dissevered from the State must be feeble. Wanting wealth of endowments and dignity of titles — its clergy entitled to no place among the peers, its revenues assured by no legal enactments — it must remain ob- scure and poor; while the absence of any external limitations, of parliamentary statutes and a legal creed, must leave it liable to endless division, and tend to its speedy disintegration into sects and schisms. It seemed as hopeless to look for strength, wealth, beneficence, for extensive educational and missionary work, to such churches as these, as to look for aggressive military organ- ization to a convention of farmers, or for the volume and thunder of Niagara to a thousand sinking and separate rills. But the work which was given to be done in this country Avas ORATION — REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 305 so great and momentous; and has been so constant, that match- ing itself against that work, the Church, under whatever name, has realized a strength, and developed an activity, wholly fresh in the world in modern times. It has not been antagonized by that instinct of liberty which always a wakens against its work where rehgion is required by law. It has seized the opportu- nity. Its ministers and members have had their own standards, leaders, laws, and sometimes have quarreled, fiercely enough, as to which were the better. But in the work which was set them to do, to give to the sovereign American people the knowl- edge of God in the Gospel of His Son, their only strife has been one of emulation — to go the furthest, to give the most, and to bless most largely the land and its future. The spiritual incentive has of course been supreme; but pa- triotism has added its impulse to the work. ■ It has been felt that Christianity is the basis of Republican empire, its bond of cohesion, its life-giving law; that the manuscript copies of the Gospels, sent by Gregory to Augustine at Canterbury, and still preserved on sixth century parchments at Oxford and Cam- bridge — more than Magna Charta itself, these are the roots of English liberty; that Magna Charta, and the Petition of Right, with our completing Declaration, were possible only because these had been before them. And so on in the work of keep- ing Christianity prevalent in the land, all earnest churches have eagerly striven. Their preachers have been heard where the pioneer's fire scarcely was kindled. Their schools have been gathered in the temporary camp, not less than in the hamlet or town. They have sent then- books with lavish distribution, they have scattered their Bibles like leaves of autumn, where settle- ments hardly were more than prophesied. In all languages of the land they have told the old story of the Law and the Cross, a present Redemption, and a coming Tribunal. The highest truths, most solemn and inspiring, have been the truths most constantly in hand. It has been felt that, in the highest sense, a muscular Christianity was indispensable where men lifted up axes upon the thick trees. The delicate speculations of the closet and the schools were too dainty for the work; and the old confessions of Councils and Reformers, whose undecaying and 306 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. sovereign energy no use exhausts, have been those always most familiar, where the trapper on his stream, or the miner in his gulch has found priest or minister on his track. Of course not all the work has been fruitful. Not all God's acorns come to oaks, but here and there one. Not all the seeds of flowers germinate, but enough to make some radiant gar- dens. And out of all this work and gift, has come a mental and moral training, to the nation at large, such as it certainly would not have had except for this effort, the effort for which would not have been made, on a scale so immense, except for this incessant aim to fit the nation for its great experiment of self-regulation. The Declaration of Independence has been the great charter of Public Education ; has given impulse and scope to this prodigious Missionary work. The result of the whole is evident enough. I am not here as the eulogist of our People, beyond what facts justify. I admit, with regret, that American manners sometimes are coarse, and American culture often very imperfect ; that the noblest examples of consummate training imply a leisure which we have not had, and are perhaps most easily produced where social advantages are more permanent than here, and the law heredity has a wider recognition. We all know, too well, how much of even vice and shame there has been, and is, in our national life ; how sluggish the public conscience has been be- fore sharpest appeals ; how corruption has entered high places in the government, and the blister of its touch has been upon laws, as well as on the acts of prominent officials. And we know the reckless greed and ambition, the fierce party spirit, the personal wrangles and jealous animosities, with which our Congress has been often dishonored,' at which the nation — sadder still — has sometimes laughed, in idiotic unreason. But knowing all this, and with the impression of it full on our thoughts, we may exult in the real, steady, and prophesy- ing growth of a better spirit toward dominance in the land. I scout the thought that we as a people are worse than our fathers ! John Adams, at the head of the War Department, in 1776, wrote bitter laments of the corruption which existed in even that infant age of the Republic, and of the spirit of ORATION — REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 307 venality, rapacious and insatiable, which was then the most alarming enemy of America. lie declared himself ashamed of the age which he lived in ! In Jefferson's day, all Federalists expected the universal dominion of French infidelity. In Jackson's day, all Whigs thought the country gone to ruin already, as if Mr. Biddle had had the entire public hope locked up in the vaults of his terminated bank. In Polk's day, the excitements of the Mexican War gave life and germination to many seeds of rascality. There has never been a time — not here alone, in any country — -when the fierce light of incessant inquiry blazing on meu in public life, would not have revealed forces of evil like those we have seen, or when the condemna- tion which followed the discovery would have been sharper. And it is among my deepest convictions that, with all which has happened to debase and debauch it, the nation at large was never before more mentally vigorous or morally sound. Gentlemen : The demonstration is around us ! This city, if any place on the continent, should have been the one where a reckless wickedness should have had sure preva- lence, and reforming virtue the least chance of success. Start- ing in 1790 with a white population of less than thirty thousand — growing steadily for forty years, till that population had multiplied six-fold — taking into itself, from that time on, such multitudes of emigrants from all parts of the earth that the dic- tionaries of the languages spoken in its streets would make a library — all forms of luxury coming with wealth, and all means and facilities for every vice — the primary elections being the seed-bed out of which springs its choice of rulers, with the in- fluence which it sends to the public councils — its citizens so ab- sorbed in their pursuits that oftentimes, for years together, large numbers of them have left its affairs in hands the most of all unsuited to so supreme and delicate a trust — it might well have been expected that while its docks were echoing with a com- merce which encompassed the globe, while its streets were thronged with the eminent and the gay from all parts of the land, while its homes had in them uncounted thousands of noble men and cultured women, while its stately squares swept out year by year across new spaces, while it founded great in- 308 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. stitutions of beneficence, and shot new spires upward toward Leaven, and turned the rocky waste to a pleasure ground famous in the earth, its government would decay, and its recklessness of moral ideas, if not as well of political principles would become apparent. Men have prophesied this, from the outset till now. The fear of it began with the first great advance of the wealth, population, and fame of the city ; and there have not been wanting facts in its history which served to renew, if not to justify the fear. But when the war of 1861 broke on the land, and shadowed every home within it, this city, — which had voted by immense majorities against the existing administration, and which was linked by unnumbered ties with the vast communities then rushing to assail it, — flung out its banners from window and spire, from City Hall and newspaper office, and poured its wealth and life into the service of sustaining the Government, with a swiftness and vehement energy that were never sur- passed. When, afterward, greedy and treacherous men, capable and shrewd, deceiving the unwary, hiring the skillful, and moulding the very law to their uses, had concentrated in their hands the government of the city, and had bound it in seem- ingly invincible chains, while they plundered its treasury, — it rose upon them, when advised of the facts, as Samson rose upon the Philistines ; and the two new cords that were upon his hands no more suddenly became as flax that was burnt than did those manacles imposed upon the city by the craft of the Ring. Its leaders of opinion to-day are the men — like him who pre- sides in our assembly — whom virtue exalts, and character crowns. It rejoices in a Chief Magistrate as upright and in- trepid in a virtuous cause, as any of those whom he succeeds. It is part of a State whose present position, in laws, and officers, and the spirit of its people, does no discredit to the noblest of its memories. And from these heights between the rivers, look- ing over the land, looking out on the earth to which its daily embassies go, it sees nowhere beneath the sun a city more ample in its moral securities, a city more dear to those who possess it, a city more splendid in promise and in hope. OKATION REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 309 What is true of the city is true, in effect, of all the land. Two things, at least, have been established by our national history, the impression of which the world will not lose. The one is, that institutions like ours, when sustained by a prevalent moral life throughout the nation, are naturally permanent. The othei is, that they tend to peaceful relations with other states. They do this in fulfillment of an organic tendency, and not through any accident of location. The same tendency will inhere in them, wheresoever established. In this age of the world, and in all the states which Christi- anity quickens, the allowance of free movement to the popular- mind is essential to the stability of public institutions. There may be restraint enough to guide, and keep such movement from premature exhibition. Bat there cannot be force enough used to resist it, and to reverse its gathering current. If there is, the government is swiftly overthrown, as in France so often, or is left on one side, as Austria has been by the advancing German people ; like the Castle of Heidelberg, at once palace and fortress, high -placed and superb, but only the stateliest ruiu in Europe, while the rail-train thunders through the tunnel be- neath it, and the Neckar sings along its near channel as if tower and tournament never had been. Revolution, transformation, organic change, have thus all the time for this hundred years been proceeding in Europe ; sometimes silent, but oftener amid thnnders of strieken fields ; sometimes pacific, but oftener with garments rolled in blood. In England the progress has been peaceful, the popular de- mands being ratified as law whenever the need became apparent. It has been vast, as well as peaceful ; in the extension of suf- frage, in the ever-increasing power of the Commons, in popular education. Chatham himself would hardly know his own Eng- land if he should return to it. The Throne continues, illustrated by the virtues of her who fills it ; and the ancient forms still obtain in Parliament. But it could not have occurred to him, or to Burke, that a century after the ministry of Grenville the emliarkation of the Pilgrims would be one of the prominent historical pictures on the panels of the lobby of the House of Lords, or that the name of Oliver Cromwell, and of Bradshaw, 310 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. President of the High Court of Justice, would be cut iu the stone in Westminster Abbey, < >vei the places in which they were buried, and whence their decaying bodies were dragged to the gibbet and the ditch. England is now, as has been well said, " an aristocratic Republic, with a permanent Executive." Its only perils lie in the fact of that aristocracy, which, however, is flex- ible enough to endure, of that permanence in the Executive, which would hardly outlive one vicious Prince. What changes have taken place in France, I need not remind you, nor how uncertain is still its future. You know how the swift untiring wheels, of advance or reaction, have rolled this way and that, in Italy, and in Spain ; how Germany has had to be reconstructed ; how Hungary has had to fight and suffer for that just place in the Austrian councils which only imperial defeat surrendered. You know how precarious the equilibrium now is, in many states, between popular rights and princely prerogative ; what armies are maintained, to fortify govern- ments ; what fear of sudden and violent change, like an avalanche tumbling at the touch of a foot, perplexes nations^ The records of change make the history of Europe. The ex- pectation of change is almost as wide as the continent itself. Meanwhile, how permanent has been this Republic, which seemed at the outset to foreign spectators a mere sudden in- surrection, a mere organized riot! Its organic law, adopted after exciting debate, but arousing no battle and enforced by no army, has been interpreted, and peacefully administered, with one great exception, from the beginning. It has once been assailed, with passion and skill, with splendid daring and un- bounded self-sacrifice, by those who sought a sectional ad- vantage through its destruction. No monarchy of the world could have withstood that assault. It seemed as if the last fatal Apocalypse had come, to drench the land with plague and blood, and wrap it in a fiery gloom. The Republic, "pouring like the tide into a breach. "With ample anil brim fulness of its force." subdued the rebellion, emancipated the race which had been in subjection, restored the dominion of the old Constitution, ORATION RKV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 311 amended its provisions in the contrary direction from that which had been so fiercely sought, gave it guaranties of en- durance while the continent lasts, and made its ensigns more eminent than ever in the regions from which they had been expelled. The very portions of the people which then sought its overthrow are now again its applauding adherents — the great and constant reconciling force, the tranquillizing Irenarch, being the freedom which it leaves in their hands. It has kept its place, this Republic of ours, in spite of the rapid expansion of the nation over territory so wide that the scanty strip of the original states is only as a fringe on its im- mense mantle. It has kept its place, while vehement debates, involving the profoundest ethical principles, have stirred to its depths the whole public mind. It has kept its place, while the tribes of mankind have been pouring upon it, seeking the shel- ter and freedom which it gave. It saw an illustrious President murdered, by the bullet of an assassin. It saw his place occu- pied as quietly by another as if nothing unforseeu or alarming had occurred. It saw prodigious armies assembled, for its defence. It saw those armies, at the end of the war, marching in swift and long procession up the streets of the Capital, and then dispersing into then* former peaceful citizenship, as if they had had no arms in their hands. The General before whose skill and will those armies had been shot upon the forces which opposed them, and whose word had been their military law, remained for three years an appointed officer of that govern- ment he had saved. Elected then to be the head of th#t govern- ment, and again re-elected by the ballots of his countrymen, in a few months more he will have retired, to be thenceforth a citizen like the rest, eligible to office, and entitled to vote, but with no thought of any prerogative descending to him, or to his children, from his great service and military fame. The Re- public, whose triumphing armies he led, will remember his name, and be grateful for his work ; but neither to him, nor to any one else, will it ever give sovereignty over itself. From the Lakes to the Gulf its will is the law, its dominion complete. Its centripetal and centrifugal forces are balanced, almost as in the astronomy of the heavens. Decentralizing ^ 312 ODE NATIONAL JUBILEE. authority, it puts his owu part of it into the hand of every citizen. Giving free scope to private enterprise, allowing not only, but accepting and encouraging, each movement of the public reason which is its only terrestrial rule, there is no threat, in all its sky, of division or downfall. It cannot be successfully assailed from within. It never will be assailed from without, with a blow at its life, while other nations continue sane. It has been sometimes compared to a pyramid, broad-based and secure, not liable to overthrow as is obelisk or column, by storm or age. The comparison is just, but it is not sufficient. It should rather be compared to one of the permanent features of nature, and not to any artificial construction : — to the river, which flows, like our own Hudson, along the courses that nature opens, forever in motion, but forever the same ; to the lake, which lies on common days level and bright in placid stillness, while it gathers its fullness from many lands, and lifts its waves in stormy strength when winds assail it ; to the mountain, which is shaped bv no formula of art, and which only rarely, in some supreme sun-burst, flushes with color, but whose roots the very earthquake cannot shake, and on whose brow the storms fall hurtless, while under its shelter the cottage nestles, and up its sides the gardens climb. So stands the Republic : Whole as the marble, founded as the rock, As broad and general as the casing air. Our government has been permanent, as established upon the old Declaration, and steadily sustained by the undecaying and moulding life in the soul of the nation. It has been peaceful, also, for the most part, in scheme and in spirit ; and has shown at no time such an appetite for war as has been familiar, within the century, in many lands. This may be denied, by foreign critics ; or at any rate be ex- plained, if the fact be admitted, by our isolation from other states, by our occupation jn peaceful labors, which have left no room for martial enterprise, perhaps by an alleged want in us of that chivalric and high-pitched spirit, -which is gladdened by danger and which welcomes the fray. I do not think the ex- planation sufficient, the analysis just ORATION REV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 313 This people was trained to military effort, from its beginning. It bad in it tbe blood of Saxon and Norman, neither of whom was afraid of war ; the very same blood which a few years after was poured out like water at Marston Moor, and Naseby, and Dunbar. Ardor and fortitude were added to its spirit by those whose fathers had followed Coligni, by the children of those whomAlva and Parma could not conquer, or whom Gustavus hud inspired with his intense paramount will. With savages in the woods, and the gray wolf prowling around its cabins, the hand of this people was from the first as familiar with the gun- stock as with mattock or plough ; and it spent more time, in proportion to its leisure, it spent more life, in proportion to its numbers, from 1607 to 1770, in protecting itself against violent assault than was speut by France, the most martial of kingdoms, on all the bloody fields of Europe. Then came the Revolution, with its years of war, and its crowning success, to intensify, and almost to consecrate this spirit, and to give it distribution ; while, from that time, the nation has been taken into its substance abounding elements from aU the fighting peoples of the earth. The Irishman, who is never so entirely himself as when the battle-storm hurtles around him ; the Frenchman, who says " After you Gentle- men," before the infernal fire of Fontenoy ; the German, whose irresistible tread the world lately heard at Sadowa and Sedan — these have been entering represenatives of two of them en- tering by millions, into the Republic. If any nation, therefore, should have a fierce and martial temper, this is the one. If any people should keep its peaceful neighbors in fear, lest its aggression should smite their homes, it is a people born, and trained, and replenished like this, admitting no rule but its own will, and conscious of a strength whose annual increase makes arithmetic pant. What has been the fact ? Lay out of sight that late civil war which could not be averted, when once it had been threat- ened, except by the sacrifice of the government itself, and a wholly unparalleled public suicide, and how much of war with foreign powers has the century seen ? There has been a fre- quent crackle of musketry along the frontiers, as Indian tribes, 314 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. which refused to be civilized, have slowly and fiercely retreated toward the "West. There was one war declared against Tripoli, in 1801, when the Kepublic took by the throat the African pirates to whom Europe paid tribute, and when the gallantry of the Preble and Decatur gave early distinction to our navy. There was a war declared against England, in 1812, when our seamen had been taken from under our Hag, from the decks of our national ships, and our commerce had been practically swept from the seas. There was a war affirmed already to exist in Mexico, in 1846, entered into by surprise, never formally declared, against which the moral sentiment of the nation rose widely in revolt, but which in its result added largely to our territory, opened to us California treasures, and wrote the names of Buena Vista and Monterey on our short annals. That has been our military history ; and if a People, as powerful and as proud, has anywhere been more peaceable also, in the last hundred years, the strictest research fails to find it. Smarting with the injury clone us by England during the crisis of our national peril, in spite of the remonstrances presented through that distinguished citizen who should have been your orator to-day — while hostile taunts had incensed our people, while burning ships had exasperated commerce, and while what looked like artful evasions had made statesmen indignant — with a half-million men who had hardly yet laid down their arms, with a navy never before so vast, or so fitted for service — when a war with England would have had the force of passion behind it, and would at any rate have shown to the world that the nation respects its starry flag, and means to have it secure on the seas — we referred all differences to arbitration, appointed commissioners, tried the cause at Geneva, with advocates, not with armies, and got a prompt and ample verdict. If Canada now lay next to Yorkshire it would not be safer from armed in- cursion than it is when divided by only a custom-house from all the strength of this Republic. The fact is apparent, and the reason not less so. A monar- chy, just as it is despotic, finds incitement to war; for pre- occupation of the popular mind ; to gratify nobles, officers, the ORATION REV. DR. R. S. STORKS. 315 army ; for historic renown. An intelligent Republic hates war, and sliuns it. It counts standing armies a curse only second to an annual pestilence. It wants no glory bat from growth. It delights itself in arts of peace, seeks social enjoy- ment and increase of possessions, and feels instinctively that, like Israel of old, " its strength is to sit still." It cannot bear to miss the husbandman from the fields, the citizen from the town, the house-father from the home, the worshipper from the church. To change or shape other people's institutions is no part of its business. To force them to accept its scheme of government would simply contradict and nullify its charter. Except, then, when it is startled into passiun by the cry of a suffering under oppression which stirs its pulses into tumult, or when it is assailed in its own rights, citizens, property, it will not go to war ; nor even then, if diplomacy can find a remedy for the w T rong. " Millions for defence," said Coteswoitk Pinck- ney to the French Directory, when Talleyrand in their name had threatened him with war, "but not a cent for tribute." He might have added, " and not a dollar for aggressive strife." It will never be safe to insult such a nation, or to outrage its citizens ; for the reddest blood is in its veins, and some Cap- tain Iugraham may always appear, to lay his little sloop of war along-side the offending frigate, with shotted guns, and a peremptory summons. There is a way to make powder inex- plosive ; but, treat it chemically how you will, the dynamite will not stand many blows of the hammer. The detonating tendency is too permanent in it. But if left to itself, such a People will be peaceful, as ours has been. It will foster peace among the nations. It will tend to dissolve great permanent armaments, as the light conquers ice, and summer sunshine breaks the glacier which a hundred nip-hammers could only scar. The longer it continues, the more widely and effectively its influence spreads, the more will its benign example hasten the day, so long foretold, so surely coming, when The war drum throbs no longer, and the battle-flags are furled, In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World. BIG OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Mr. President: Fellow-Citizens: — To an extent too great for your patience, but with a rapid incompleteness that is only too evident as we match it with the theme, I have outlined be- fore you some of the reasons why we have right to commemo- rate the day whose hundredth anniversary has brought us to- gether, and why the paper then adopted has interest and importance not only for us, but for all the advancing sons of men. Thank God that he who framed the Declaration, and he who was its foremost champion, both lived to see the nation they had shaped growing to greatness, and to die together, in that marvelous coincidence, on its semi-centennial ! The fifty years which have passed since then have only still further hon- ored their work. Mr. Adams was mistaken in the day which he named as the one to be most fondly remembered. It was not that on which Independence of the empire of Great Britain was formally resolved. It was that on which the reasons were given which justified the act, and the principles were announced which made it of secular significance to mankind. But he would have been absolutely right in saying of the fourth day what he did say of the second: it " will be the most remarkable epoch in the history of America; to be celebrated by succeeding genera- tions as the great anniversary festival, commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God, from one end of the continent to the other." It will not be forgotten, in the land or in the earth, until the stars have fallen from their poise; or until our vivid morning- star of Republican liberty, not losing its lustre, has seen its special brightness fade in the ampler effulgence of a freedom universal ! But while we rejoice in that which is past, and gladly recog- nize the vast organific mystery of life which was in the Declara- tion, the plans of Providence which slowly and silently, but with ceaseless progression, had led the way to it, the immense and enduring results of good which from it have flowed, let us not forget the duty which always etpials privilege, and that of peo- ples, as well as of persons, to whomsoever much is given, shall only therefore the more be required. Let us consecrate our - selves, each one of us, hire, to the further duties which wait to ORATION — RKV. DR. R. S. STORRS. 317 be fulfilled, to the work which shall consummate tk,» great work of the Fathers ! From scanty soils come richest grapes, and on severe and rocky slopes the trees are often of toughest fibre. The wines of Rudesheim and Johannisberg cannot be grown in the fatness of gardens, and the cedars of Lebanon disdain the levels of marsh and meadow. So a heroism is sometimes native to penury which luxury enervates, and the great resolution which sprang up in the blast, and blossomed under inclement skies, may lose its shapely and steadfast strength when, the air is all of summer softness. In exuberant resources is to be the coming American peril; in a swiftly increasing luxury of life. The old humility, hardihood, patience, are too likely too be lost when material success again opens, as it will, all avenues to wealth, and when its brilliant prizes solicit, as again they will, the national spirit. Be it ours to endeavor that that temper of the Fathers which was nobler than their work shall live in the children, and exalt to its tone their coming career; that political intelligence, pa- triotic devotion, a reverent spirit toward Him who is above, an exulting expectation of the future of the World, and a sense of our relation to it, shall be, as of old, essential forces in our pub- lic life; that education and religion keep step all the time with the Nation's advance, and the School and the Church be always at home wherever its flag shakes out its folds. In a spirit worthy the memories of the Past let us set ourselves to accom- plish the tasks which, in the sphere of national politics still await completion. We burn the sunshine of other years, when we ignite the wood or coal upoa our hearths. We enter a priv- ilege which ages have secured, in our daily enjoyment of politi- cal freedom. While the kindling glow irradiates our homes, let it shed its lustre on our spirit, and quicken it for its fur- ther work. Let us fight against the tendency of educated men to reserve themselves from politics, remembering that no other form of human activity is so grand or effective as that which affects, first the character, and then the revelation of character in the gov- ernment, of a great and free People. Let us make religious dis- 318 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. sension here, as a force in politics, as absurd as witchcraft.* Let party names be nothing to us, in comparison with that costly and proud inheritance of liberty and of law, which parties exist to conserve and enlarge, which any party will have here to maintain if it would not be buried, at the next cross-roads, with a stake through its breast. Let us seek the unity of all sec- tions of the Republic, through the prevalence in all of mutual respect, through the assurance in all of local freedom, through the mastery in all of that supreme spirit which flashed from the lips of Patrick Henry, when "he said, in the first Continental Congress, " I am not a Virginian, but an Ameri- can." Let us take care that labor maintains its ancient place of privilege and honor, and that industry has no fetters im- posed, of legal restraint or of social discredit, to hinder its work or to lessen its wage. Let us turn, and overturn, in pub- lic discussion, in political change, till we secure a Civil Service, honorable, intelligent, and worthy of the land, in which capable integrity, not partisan zeal, shall be the condition of each pub- lic trust ; and let us resolve that whatever it may cost, of labor and of patience, of sharper economy and of general sacrifice, it shall come to pass that wherever American labor toils, wher- ever American enterprise plans, wherever American commerce reaches, thither again shall go as of old the country's coin — the American Eagle, with the encircling stars and golden plumes ! In a word, Fellow-Citizens, the moral life of the nation being ever renewed, all advancement and timely reform will come as comes the bourgeoning of the tree from the secret force which fills its veins. Let us each of us live, then, in the blessing and the duty of our great citizenship, as those who are conscious of unreckoned indebetedness to a heroic and prescient Past : — * Cromwell is sometimes considered a bigot. His rule on this subject is therefore the more worthy of record : " Sir, the State, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions ; if they be willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies. * * Take heed of being sharp, or too easily sharpened by others, against those to whom you can object little, but that they square not with you in every opinion concerning matters of religion. If there be any other offence to be charged upon him, that must, in a judicial way, receive determination." — Letter to Mnjor-General Crawford, 10th March, 1643. ORATION— REV. DR. R. S. STORRg. 319 the grand and solemn lineage of whose freedom runs back beyond Bunker Hill or the Mayflower, runs back beyond muni- nients ;md memories of men, and has the majesty of far centu- ries on it ! Let us live as those for whom God hid a continent from the world, till He could open all its scope to the freedom and faith of gathered peoples, from many lands, to be a nation to His honor and praise ! Let us live as those to whom He commits the magnificent trust of blessing peoples many and far, by the truths which He has made our life, and by the his- tory which He helps us to accomplish. Such relation to a Past ennobles this transient and vanishing life. Such a power of influence on the distant and the Future, is the supremest terrestial privilege. It is ours if we will, in the mystery of that spirit, which has an immortal and a ubiqui- tous life. With the swifter instruments now in our hands, with the land compacted into one immense embracing home, with the world opened to the interchange of thought, and thrilling with the hopes that now animate its life, each American citizen has superb opportunity to make his influence felt afar, and felt for long ! Let us not be unmindful of this ultimate and inspiring lesson of the hour ! By all the memories of the Past, by all the im- pulse of the Present, by the noblest instincts of our own souls, by the touch of His sovereign spirit upon us, God make us faithful to the work, and to Him ! that so not only this city may abide, in long and bright tranquility of peace, when our eyes have shut forever on street, and spire, and populous square ; that so the land, in all its future, may reflect an influence from this anniversary ; and that, when another century has passed, the sun which then ascends the heavens may look on a world advanced and illumined beyond our thought, and here may be- hold the same great Nation, born of struggle, baptized into liberty, and in its second terrific tral purchased by blood, then expanded and multiplied till all the land blooms at its touch, and still one in its life, because still pacific, Christian, free! SONG OF 1876. BY BAYARD TAYLOR. WIRTTEN FOR THE NEW YORK CELEBRATION, JULY 4, 1876. Waken, voice of the Land's Devotion ! Spirit of freedom, awaken all ! Ring, ye shores, to the Song of Ocean, Rivers, answer, and mountains, call 1 The golden day has come ; Let every tongue be dumb That sounded its malice or murmered its fears; She hath won her story ; She wears her glory ; We crown her the Land of a Hundred Tears I Out of darkness and toil and danger Into the light of Victory's day — Help to the weak and Home to the stranger, Freedom to all, she hath held her way ! Now Europe's orphans rest Upon her mother's breast ; The voices of nations are heard in the cheers That shall cast upon her New love and honor, And crown her the Queen of a Hundred Years ! North and South, we are met as brothers; East and West, we are wedded as one ! Right of each shall secure our mother's — Child of each is her faithful son ! We give thee heart and hand, Our glorious native land, For battle has tried thee, and time endears; We will write thy story, And keep thy glory As pure as of old for a Thousand Years ! DEMOCRACY, THE HOPE OF THE NATION. AN ORATION BY HON. FERNANDO WOOD, DELIVERED AT TAMMANY HALL, NEW YORK CITY, JULY 4tH, 1876. As one of the sons of revolutionary ancestors, whose blood was shed upon the battle fields of their country, I am proud to be here to-day. This day is hallowed by sacred memories. It marks an epoch in the period of time which proved more productive to humaD development than any other but one since the creation of man. It was second in importance only to the appearance on earth of the Divine Master. After a century's duration, tried by fire and sword, by pestilence and famine, by internal convulsion, and by the ever changing vicissitudes of party and sectional conflict, we emerge to-day from all the dangers and trials of the past, brighter, stronger and greater than any other people on earth of one individuality. Who is not proud to be an Ameri- can? Lives there to-day, anywhere, a man of any station in life, of any order of intelligence, of any sojourn in any other climes, of any creed or faith, of any political opinions, of any section, who does not stand more erect and bear himself more lofty, when able to say that he is an American citizen, one of the people of this blessed land. Nor is this claim founded upon mere self-laudation. The government and people of other nationalities concede and recognize it. It is universally ac- cepted, and to be an American is of itself so high an honor that it affords a passport to distinction everywhere. The United States of to-day is the one and only great republic. It is the one and only land of perfect freedom. It is the one and only nationality with power sufficiently consolidated to prove effec- tive in maintaining its integrity, and also with free opinion so diffused as to afford all men equality under the laws in the en- joyment of life, liberty and happiness. Our territory, stretched from ocean to ocean, commands both seas, which nearly encir. $22 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. cle a vast continent; our numbers are equal to forty-five mil- lions; internal tranquility is established, and our external rela- tions to other governments of commanding strength and sensi- tive honor such as none would deem it prudent to offend. Within our jurisdiction, living peacefully and happy, may be found men of opposite creeds, of all nativities, of every lan- guage and diversified interests, with no disposition to encroach upon each other's rights, and no fear of Government interfer- ence. Thus we form a solid political community, united in all the essential requisites of national power, with one government, and yet with many governments. As a people we recognize and protect each other, contribute in common towards the general welfare, and support in common the general burdens. "Where exists our superior — or rather where exists our peer ? Though young in years we are among the oldest in form of government of the Christian nations of the world. Few in Europe that have not changed either their dynasty or the character of their rule within the century. Within the period of our nationality, France has been a monarchy, an empire and a republic. Ger- many has been a combination of discordant, petty monarchies, and now an empire. Italy has been a collection of disintegra- ted states and dukedoms, and now a kingdom. Poland, Sar- dinia, Naples and other monarchies have ceased and become extinct. A century ago the government of England was exercised by the sovereign ; it is now practically vested in the popular branch of Parliament. The crown remains, but the House of Com- mons governs in its power to compel a change of ministry, which is the actual executive authority. Spain has alternated between anarchy, republicism and mon- archy. O her nations of Europe have been partitioned or dis- membered, have undergone the infliction of foreign control or been subjected to the caprice or ambition of more powerful neighbors, whilst the United States has maintained intact the integrity, solidity and formulas of her original creation, firmly adhering to popular liberty, standing proud and defiant to all outside attempts at interference, never compromising her honor, never shi-inking from an assertion of entire indepen- ORATION FERNANDO WOOD. 323 dence of all other nations, and at all times commanding respect abroad and lier autonmpny at home. Thus was she originally established, and thus has she maintained herself — a republic for the whole period of her existence, one hundred years to- day. Now, my Mends, in contemplating this fact can we fail to remember those illustrious men who laid the foundation so broad and deep upon which has been erected this splendid structure ? Is it within the compass of human thought to dwell upon our present greatness, and forget those to whom we are indebted for it? Go with me back to the American Revolution — yet further back to those momentous events which preceded that terrible struggle. Remember those poor colonists, who had mostly sought a refuge from either political or religious oppression at home on this cold and inhospitable shore ; see the reception the savage gave them, the struggle with the elements, the impoverished settlements, the depriva- tion and neglect which followed, the final lodgments of detached and far separated populations, the struggling communities, the destitution and horrible events incident to border life, far re- moved from any of the facilities of either defensive protection or means of continued existence, and the final formation of but a pro forma government, with the name but without its essen- tial requirements. Thus we bring them down to the middle of the eighteenth century. They had persevered, and had conquered the savage on the seaboard, had increased in popu- lation, procured some trade and commerce, and attracted the notice of their European masters. But this notice was not in the interest of their advantage and progress. It was rather that notice by which avarice sees and covets the accumulations of a poor or dependent neighbor. It was the same spirit of protection that the wolf gives to lambs when he covers and devours them. Exactions were imposed, representation in the Home Gov- ernment was denied, humble petitions were treated with con- tempt, remonstrances were held to be treasonable, more troops were ordered across the ocean to overawe and to command obe- dience, and the hand of despotism laid its mailed glove upon the spirits and almost crushed pride of the colonists, who found 324 OtJK NATIONAL JUBILEE. in their mother country a more terrible foe than they had origin- ally encountered in the native barbarity of the American Indian. The people became gloomy, and looked on with forebodings, a few whispered of oppression, some went so far as to speak out in condemnation of the new burdens imposed, but it was only when the Home Government proceeded to carry out its edicts and to prepare for their compulsory enforcement, that the rebel- lion became imminent. A long, deep murmur ran along the Atlantic shore from the far east to the southern extremity. Here and there a popular gathering gave vent to the too long pent up indignation. Here and there a prominent man spoke out, as did Patrick Henry in the provincial council of Virginia, when he ex- claimed, that as for him, " give him hberty or give him death.'' A general colonial congress was called to assemble at Phila- delphia. Every colony sent its representative to sit in council and to determine the great questions which the crisis appeared to call for — and what a council, and what a gathering. Here was Jefferson, the great founder of the pure Democracy, whose precepts furnished the underlying strata upon which rests the genius of our institutions, and which established the guide to our political faith and the only rehable beacon-light to our national liberty and glory. And now let me pause a moment to refer more especially to this illustrious personage. In him were blended all the attributes which go to make up the truly great man. He possessed a pe- culiar combination of rare qualities. We often find a strong in- tellectual development connected with a defective temperament ; personal courage is frequently clouded by want of moral consci- ousness, but it is not often that the moral, mental and physical qualities exist in their highest order in the same individual, all evenly balanced and alike alive and active, giving force and power,prominence and overtowering altitude to him who possesses them. But these were found in Jefferson — he stands out among the fathers of our system as the one head ; he had, it is true, as- sociates and assistants, but he was the master who devised framed, planned and executed the mighty work itself. Armed revolutions may overturn old governments, but it is only the philosophy of the statesman that can make new ones. But for I OKATION FEKNANDO WOOD. 325 Jefferson, all the military successes of Washington might have produced but barren results. It was he who had thought out the work to be done, how to do it, and what should follow after it was done. It was not war and war alone that produced a successful revolution. It was not war at all that constructed our Government. Before a Continental army existed, and before Washington was brought from his country home, on the banks of the Potomac, to lead the troops, this Republic was born in the con- ception of the genius, the patriotism and the courage of Thomas Jefferson. He was not a military man, nor a military hero, but the chosen instrument of the Almighty, in whose brain and heart had been infused the peaceful spirit of God itself, who had brought order out of chaos in the great universe, so Jefferson formtd and massed the heterogenous elements of disunited colonies into one grand national Republic. Nor was this the only work of Jefferson. It became his dut} r , not only to create the State, but to provide also the means of its con- tinuance. As he had designed and executed the first steps towards its formation, in the Declaration of Independence, and had followed this with a form of Federal union, he saw that something more than these were required. He knew that states, however free, may become despotic ; that governments, though born in revolution, imbued with a spirit of liberty, may die in anarchy. It was not enough for him that he had aided in the creation of a free people ; he saw that it was necessary to main- tain that freedom. With this holy thought, that the freed colonies, whose political characters had been changed from vassalage to that of independence, he formed and established a political organization, which through its popular action should operate as a safeguard against attempts to reenslave the people, through monarchical tendencies or partisan deceptions. Hence was formed the Democratic party. In his brain was conceived this blessed combination. He was the author and sole arbitor of its fortunes during his life, and his spirit has watched over and protected it ever since. Its mission was to secure to pos- terity the full enjoyment of the blessings obtained in the Amer- ican Revolution. 32G OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. As popular opinion was to govern through the people's re- presentatives, it was necessary to educate, to instruct, to con- solidate and to make effective at the polls a just sentiment, a correct estimate of public questions, and a strict adherence to the true theory of government, upon which our institutions were originally founded. For this reason and to this end and pur- pose did Jefferson establish the Democratic party in 1802. He saw the old monarchial despotism striving through the efforts of demagogues to regain ascendency by the organ- ization of a Federal party, headed by the selfish intrigues of ambitious aspirants to popular favor. To combat this, and to perpetuate oar liberties, he sent out a note of warning and issued a second declaration, another proclamation of determined resistance, and a reminder of the glorious work which had been performed in 1770. This was the origin and the object of our organization. How glorious was the thought — but how more glorious has been its lifetime and history. I have said that it was a proud title — that of American citizenship, to be one of this body of American citizens, audi now add it is yet a higher honor to be able to say in addition, I am a member of the National Demo- cratic party, have always upheld its principles and supported its candidates. All that go to make this nation's greatness has been the work of that party, and to it and it alone may be traced Mie wonderful progress, the steady patriotism and the only adherence to the original intentions of the fathers of the Constitution, which has served to maintain the Union and se- cure its benefits. Such has been its history in the past, and as such it stands to-day. Amid unexampled trials and struggles it still lives. Its mission is but partially accomplished. Its destiny and work is still before us. As yet nothing has shaken the solidity of its organization. During the late civil war it was maintained intact, and though then thrown into a minority in the Government, it nevertheless had at the end of that war sufficient force and vitality to operate as a barrier to the at- tempted fanatical absorption of all the power in the Govern- ment, and the conversion of constitutional liberty into a narrow partisan despotism. ORATION— FERNANDO WOOD. 327 It is now the imperative duty of all good men to combine in one common effort to secure the ascendency of the Democratic party to power in the national Government. Let us give to the canvass our best energies. Let us allay all intestine differences ; let us throw ourselves into the contest with all the courage, tenacity, and resolution which so great a cause has the right to command from every lover of his country. THE GRANDEUR OF OUR REPUBLIC. AN ORATION BY RICHARD O'GORMAN, DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, AT IRVING HALL, NEW YORK, JULY 4th, 1876. I esteem myself much honored, citizens, in being allowed to participate in your festival to-day. I know that there is no need of my speaking to you. I know well that what I am able to say can add little- or nothing to the grace and splendor of this occasion. It seems to me, citizens, as if to-day were not like other days. Men's voices have in them a more genial, a more hearty ring; men's looks are more cheerful and friendly. A thousand ban- ners float upon the breeze. From a thousand church steeples the chimes ring out their melody on the throbbing air. In a thousand stately houses of prayer anthems peal and hymns of praise ascend to heaven. These are the voices of the great city, the signs and symbols by which it strives to give utterance to the sentiments of pride, praise, and exultation with which its million hearts are jubilant to-day. And in all this tumult, this tempest of enthusiasm, there is neither affectation nor exaggeration, nor excess. For the event we celebrate is a great event — great a hundred years ago, great to-day, and to be great and memorable in the time to come, when you and I shall all have passed away and the memory of us shall have perished from the earth. In other countries I have seen national festivals splendidly kept. There they know well the virtue of preserving a nation's traditions and allying its present, as far as may be, with whatever of pride and honor belong to its past. And yet, the events they commemorated were of merely local interest, and awakened but limited and partial sympathies — some hard-fought battles won — some enemy's city taken and sacked — some smiling land made desolate — some hostile race subdued. But such achievements ORATION RICHARD O GORMAN. 829 triumphantly celebrated by the conqueror, were to the conquer- ed only memories of defeat and agony and humiliation. What was a holiday to one people was a day of woe and mourning to another. In the day we celebrate, there is, thank God, no sorrow — over its clear sky comes no cloud. Its memories are undimmed by a single tear. There is no man of any race or creed or nation or color under the sun who, looking back on the deed done here in America a hundred years ago, can truly say that it wrought wrong or ill to him or his — no man who can deny that it was well done, and a deed wise and beneficial to all mankind. You have all read the Declaration of Independence ; you have it by heart ; you have heard it read to-day. A hundred years ago it was a new revelation, startling with new terror kings on their thrones, and bidding serfs in their poor huts arise and take heart, and look up, with new hope of deliverance. It asserted that all men, kings and peasants, master and servant, rich and poor, were born equal with equal rights, inheritors of equal claim to protection from the law ; that governments de- rived their just powers, not from conquest or force, but from the consent of the governed, and existed only for their protec- tion and to make them happy. These were the truths eternal, but long unspoken ; truths that few dared to utter, which Pro- vidence ordained, should be revealed here in America, to be the political creed of the peoples all over the earth. Like a trumpet blast blown in the night, it pealed through the dark abodes of misery and aroused men to thought and hope and action. France caught the sound and awoke and tore off the tattered trappings from feudalism, and trampled the decrepit thing under her feet. Greece, dreaming of Marathon and Thermopylae, shook off her long lethargy, caught up again sword and shield, beat back, as of old, Asia and barbarism, and consecrated anew to freedom the Home of Athene, the fair land of the olive and the vine. To Poland, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, the summons was carried on the western winds. Even England herself found in the protest of her rebel colonies the forgotten lesson of her own liberties, and in the success of rebel arms the dearest rights of her own people were saved. SIJO OUH NATIONAL JUBILEE. And that trumpet blast still is pealing and will peal, still sum- mons whatever of manhood remains in mankind to assert itself. Still, at that sound the knees of tyrants "will be loosened with fear, and the hopes of freemen will rise and their hearts beat faster and higher as long as this round earth hangs poised in air, and men live upon it whose souls are alive with memories of the past. The Declaration of American Independence was a declaration of war witb Great Britain, of war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt. There were fearful odds against the Colonies when they threw down the gage of battle. On one side was England — strong in consciousness of wealth and power, strong in the prestige of sovereignty, fully armed and equipped for war, in- solent, haughty, scorning even to entertain the idea of possible check or defeat. On the other side, the Thirteen Colonies, stretching, for the most part, along the seaboard, vulnerable at a hundred points, and open to attack by sea and land, with- out army, without navy, without money or ammunition or ma- terial of war, having for troops only crowds of undisciplined citizens who had left for a while, plough and anvil, and hurried to the front with what arms they could lay hands on to fight the veterans of King George, skilled in their terrible trade by long service in European wars. On the second of July, 1776, the Continental Congress was in session in Philadelphia. There were about forty-nine dele- gates present. That day was a day of gloom. The air was dark and heavy with ill news ; ill news from the North — Mont- gomery had fallen at Quebec, and the expedition against Canada, had miserably failed. The lakes were all open to British ships, and a dusky cloud of savages, armed and enlisted in the name of the King, was gathering in the west, threatening at any moment to burst on the defenceless land in a storm of havoc and slaughter and devastation, compared with which the ordinary horrors of war were acts of mercy. Ill news from the South — a fleet of British-men-of-war had crossed the bar at Charleston, South Carolina. All during the long summer's day they had been pouring shot and shell upon the little forts, where Moultrie and Marion and William Jasper were sullenly ORATION RICHARD o'GORMAN. 331 returning shot for shot. And now the night was come, and from steeple and house-top the citizens of Charleston watched flash after flash and prayed for dawn to give them light to see if the defiant flag of freedom was still there. Ill news from New York — Lord Howe's ships were riding in the Lower Bay, and a British army of thirty thousand men menaced the city with attack. In New York city, counsels were wavering and uncertain. Persons of rank, and wealth, and culture, were for the most part on the side of the crown, and longed to see the " Union Jack" again floating above them. The Continental forces in New York did not exceed 7,500 men. Even among them there was disaffection. Treachery was at work. A plot had been discovered to take the life of the com- mander-in-chief, and some of his body guard had been hanged for it. From all sides came ill tidings. Everywhere doubt and suspicion and despondency. It was a dark and gloomy time, when even the boldest might well be forgiven for losing heart. Such was the hour when Congress entered upon the consid- eration of the great question, on which hung the fate of a con- tinent. There were some who clung still to British connection. The King might relent — conciliation was not impossible — a monarchial form of government was dear to them. The past of England was their past, and they loth to lose it. Then war was a terrible alternative. They saw the precipice and they shuddered and started back appalled. But on the other side, were the men of the hour — the men of the people, who listened to the voice of the people, and felt the throbbing of the people's great heart. They, too, saw the precipice. Their eyes fathomed all the depth of the black abyss, but they saw be- yond the glorious vision of the coming years. They saw count- less happy homes stretching far and wide across a continent, wherein should dwell for ages, generation after generation of men nurtured in strength and virtue, and prosperity by the light and warmth of freedom. Remember, that between the thirteen colonies there were then but few ties. They differed in many things ; in race, religion, climate, pro- ductions, and habits of thought, as much then as they do now. 382 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. One grand purpose alone knit their souls together, North to South, Adams of Massachusetts to Jefferson of Virginia. The holy purpose of building up here, for them and thuir children, a free nation, to be die example, the model, the citadel of free- dom, or, failing in that, to die and be forgotten, or remembered only with the stain of rebellion on their names. The counsel of these brave and generous men prevailed. Some light from the better world illumined their souls and strengthened their hearts. Behind them surged and beat the great tide of popu- lar enthusiasm. The people, ever alive to heroic purpose ; the people, whose honest instincts are often the wisest statesman- ship ; the people waited but for the word ; ready to fight, ready to die if need be for independence. And so God's will was done upon the earth. The word was spoken, the "Declaration" was uttered that gave life and name to the " United States of America," and a new nation breathed and looked into the future, daring all the best or the worst that future might bring. If that declaration became a signal of rescue and relief to countries far away, what word can describe the miracles it has wrought for this people here at home. It was a spell, a talisman, an armor of proof, and a sword of victory. The undisciplined throng of citizen soldiers, taught in the stern school of hardship and reverse, soon grew to be a great army, before which the veterans of Britain recoiled. Europe, surprised into sympathy with rebellion, sent her best and bravest here to right the battle of freedom, and Lafayette of France, De Kalb of Germany, Kosciusko of Poland, and their compeers, drew their bright swords in the ranks of the young republic. Best support of all, was that calm, fearless, steadfast soul, which, undismayed in the midst of peril and dis- aster, undaunted amid wreck and ruin, stood like a tower, re- flecting all that was best and noblest in the character of the American people, and personifying its resolute will. Happy is that nation to whom, in its hour of need, bountiful heaven provides a leader so brave and wise, so fitted to guide and rule, as was in that early crisis of the American republic its foremost man — George Washington. ORATION RICHARD o'GORMAN. 333 Thus, from the baptism of blood, the young nation came forth purified, triumphant, free. Then the mystic influence, the magic of her accomplished freedom, began to work, and the thoughts of men, and the powers of earth and air and sea be- gan to do her bidding, and cast their treasures at her feet. From the thirteen parent Colonies, thirty-eight great States and Territories have been born. At first a broad land of forest and prairie stretched far and wide, needing only the labor of man to render it fruitful. Men came — across the Atlantic, breasting its storms, sped mighty fleets, carrying hither bri- gades and divisions of the grand army of labor. On they came, in columns, mightier than ever a king led to battle — in columns, millions strong, to conquer a continent, not to havoc and desolation, but to fertility and wealth, and order, and hap- piness. They came from field and forest in the noble German land — from where amid cornfield and vineyard, and flowers, the lordly Ehine flows proudly toward the sea. From Ireland — from heath-covered hill and grassy valley — from where the giant cliffs stand as sentinels for Europe, meet the first shock of the Atlantic and hurl back its surges broken and shattered in foam. From France and Switzerland, from Italy and Sweden, from all the winds of heaven, they came ; and as their battle line ad- vanced, the desert fell back subdued, and in its stead sprang up corn and fruit, the olive and the vine, and gardens that blos- somed like the rose. Of triumphs like these, who can estimate the value. The population of three millions a hundred years ago has risen to forty-five millions to-day. We have great cities, great manu- factures, great commerce, great wealth, great luxury and splen- dor. Seventy -four thousand miles of railway conquer distance, and make all our citizens neighbors to one another. All these things are great and good, and can be turned to good. But they are not all. Whatever fate may befall this Republic, whatever vicissitudes or disasters may be before her, this praise, at least, can never be denied to her, this glory she has won forever, that for one hundred years she has been hospitable and generous ; that she gave to the stranger a welcome — opened 334 DUE NATIONAL JUBILEE. to him all the treasures of her liberty, gave him free scope for all his ability, a free career and fair play. And this, it is, that most endears this republic to other na- tions, and has made fast friends for her in the homes of the peo- ples all over the earth. Not her riches nor her nuggets of gold, nor her mountains of silver, nor her prodigies of mechanical skill, great and valuable though these things be. It is this, that most of all makes her name beloved and honored; that she has always been broad and liberal in her sympathies; that she has given homes to the homeless, land to the landless; that she has secured for the greatest number of those who have dwelt on her wide domain, a larger measure of liberty and peace and happiness, and for a greater length of time than has ever been enjoyed by any other people on this earth. For this, the peoples all over the earth, and through all time, will call this republic blessed. Vicissitudes the United States has had and will have. Neither man nor nation is exempt from error and passion and sin, nor from the sorrows that sin and passion are sure to entail. It is not given to man nor to nation to escape the drinking of that bitter cup. But look to other countries. Look to the history of Europe for the last hundred years, and say if Europe has not undergone disasters more severe than ours. Think of all her wars, insurrections and revolutions. The streets of her fair cities bristling with barricades and slippery with blood. Her society divided into hostile camps, labor in wretchedness and rags, eyeing with jealousy and aversion idleness in wealth, lux- ury and splendor. There, frauds in high places are covered up and concealed. Here, there is no man so high that the arm of the law can not reach him, or the lightning of public opinion strike and wither him with its scorn. There, eight millions of armed men eat the substance of its people and menace its industry and repose with fear of change, fear of new convulsion and new wars. Here, no foreign foe can hurt us. This republic could hold her own against the rest of the world in arms. "We have passed through the terrible ordeal of civil war. That calamity in which other republics have miserably perished ORATION — RICHARD o'cORMAN. 335 lias befallen us. This republic has not perished. Its life, its liberty have survived. Still a written Constitution, assented to by the people, is the supreme law, the great charter of the land. The right of free discussion is preserved. We have a free press, under whose fearless and ceaseless scrutiny no crime can re- main long undiscovered, no conspiracy long undetected, no se- cret undevulged, no public offender go long unwhipped of justice. The storm is past. The great deluge has subsided. The means still remain to us by which we can restore what should be restored, redress, reconstruct, and reform. And do not doubt, citizens, but that in the revolution which is past, spite of all its losses, and they have been grievous, great good has been achive- ed. No convulsion so great has ever tortured and torn society without leaving some gain behind. Let us frankly and thankfully accept that good. Let us va- lue it all the more for the great price we have paid for it and must still pay. The Union is saved, not only saved, but firmer, stronger than ever. For a century to come no man will be in- sane enough to dream of the possibility of its dissolution. That danger i^ past. The blow which threatened to dissolve and shat- ter it, has but welded it together into harder and more compact stolidity. It remains to us, citizens, to make that union not only a firm, but a happy union — happy for South as for North, for West as for East ; not a union of force and fear and distrust, but a union of friendship and mutual confidence ; not a fetter of iron to bind the hands, but a wreath of flowers to chain the affections and delight the heart. Slavery exists no more in the United States ! The civil war has swept it away forever. That ancient cause of quarrel can disturb us no more. The debate is closed. The question is gone into judgment, from which there is no appeal. It is written forever in the Constitution, and in all things the Constitution must be respected and obeyed. These gains the civil war has brought with it. Of the losses it has entailed I do not care to say much to-day. The occasion is not fitting — on this day no word of sadness should be uttered, no word of anger, no word that tastes of the bitterness of mere faction. To-day we are all Americans — proud of our great re- public, proud of its past, hopeful of its future. 336 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Let other men on other days tell you of the nation's errors and her faults. That there have been faults, drawbacks, contra- dictions, prejudices, and follies to be deplored no one can deny. He that searches for these things will find them in the doings of every people. Stand on the bank of any great river and trace its course and you will see its babbling shallows, its rough cata- racts, its dark, deep, and treacherous pools. You will see eddies, where the stream seems to flow back upon itself — you will see it as it comes from among cities — from the marts of commerce, turbid, disfigured, and soiled. But go to a distance, ascend some eminence where a broader view can be obtained. Look at the river then. It flows like a ribbon of silver under the sun, follow- ing always its destined course to the sea, broad, deep, resistless, bearing on its breast, health and wealth and happiness to man. So it is with this republic. There is in it no wrong that may not be righted, no stain that may not be removed, no loss that may not be repaired, no sorrow that, in time, may not be for- given and forgotten. I have faith in time. Complete reconcilia- tion between friends, once estranged, may be slow in coming, but it will come at last. The waves will heave and toss for a while, though the great storm be over and the winds be still, but calm will come, the sky will clear and God's blessed sun shine out at last. With us here, the time, too, will come, when men will take shame to be called " Northern men," or " South- ern " or " Eastern " or Western men." We are all Americans. He robs himself of honor who chooses a narrower title. And now the first 100 years of the nation's life are over. The first stage in the journey is accomplished. Behind us lies the past. Look back at it, it is a glorious past ; full of good, full of honor, full of benificence to all mankind. Look back at it with pride. We turn to the path before us — the future — what shall it be ? It is for you, citizens, to answer. The power to mould and govern that future is in your own hands. You have the ballot. Use it wisely ; use it honestly. Better weapon was never yet in freemen's hands. Preserve that weapon always with jealous care. Keep the right of free suffrage at all hazards, for in the hour that right is surrendered, the democratic Republic dies. ORATION RICHARD o'GORMAN. 337 There are dangers before the Republic and around it. Ail life is full of danger. I have striven to tell you how, in the great days of old, the fathers of the Republic, spite of great dangers, laid its foundations broad and deep. They had selfishness to counteract, ambitions to watch, treachery to defeat. They had plots and conspiracies to guard against, the unwisdom of those who were honest, and the intrigues of those that were not honest. There were men among them, as there are among us, timid and faint of heart, who despaired of the Republic. In spite of all these, and a thousand other obstacles, the American people, a hundred years ago, achieved American Independence. You are inheritors of all their honors ; you enjoy the benefits of their success. It cannot be that you can fail in the easier task of preserving the nation they made. A great issue is soon to be tried before you. Even now two great parties are at your feet, each soliciting your favor, claiming your confidence and asking you to confide to its hands rule over the Republic, and the con- trol of all its patronage and power. All this, citizens, is yours to give. On you rests now all the responsibility. Think well how you decide, for on your judgment may depend the future of your Republic. I do not address you to-day as a partisan. In an hour like this we stand above the level of party. Parties are the people's servants, bound to carry out the people's will. Sometimes parties come into existence only to fulfill some special mission, and that mission accomplished, they die of their own success, or lag su- perfluous on the stage, and stop the way of progress. Some parties seem fitted to conduct war — others to guide the nation in the ways of peace. But the sure and unfailing test by which the capacity of , any party for future usefulness can be ascertained, is found in careful study of its conduct in the past. Party plat- forms are of little value ; party promises are easily made and easi- ly broken. Words may deceive, deeds tell the truth. By their fruits you shall know them. Apply the test to our own case. For fifteen years one great party has had possession of the Government of this nation — of this period four years were spent in war, which was, it is claim- ed, vigorously prosecuted and brought to a successful end — all 338 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. the credit that may be due to this party for this achievement it deserves, and it has had it ; it has received besides in honors and emoluments an ample and generous recompense. For all this, it has had its reward. But in the eleven years of peace that have passed since that war ceased, what account can it give of its stewardship ? During all that period it has been absolute master of the Republic and of all its resources. It has levied taxes as it pleased, and spent them as it pleased. No party op- position has been strong enough to check its action. It has been omnipotent and supreme. Now, citizens, look at the result. Is any man satisfied with it ? Is it not time to ask this party, in whose hands you have placed the Government for the last eleven years of peace, why accumulating misfortunes oppress the land ? This is not a ques- tion of party. It is a question for the nation. It affects your homes, your dearest interests, the interests of your wives and children. Do not allow yourselves to be diverted from it. Eloquent orators will address you. They will appeal to your prejudices and strive to arouse your passions. Beware of them. Prejudice and passion are unsafe guides — false lights that lure men into ruin. Trust rather to your own reason, to your own strong common sense, and to the clear light which heaven has set in your own hearts. What policy does the people of the United States desire in the Government of the future ? As to this, I think good people of all parties are nearly agreed. The people wish that henceforth the Government, throughout all the land, shall be a Government, not of force, but of law — law lawfully executed and honestly ad- ministered — that elections throughout all the land shall be free, so that the fountain from which all the power of • Government should flow, shall not be choked and poisoned at its source ; we want that official extravagance should be stopped, that official economy should be enforced, and that the progress of real and substantial reform should be everywhere unchecked and trium- phant. "We want that the burden of taxation should be lighten- ed from the shoulders of the people, that confidence be restored, enterprise be revived, and the wheels of commerce again be set in motion. ORATION RICHARD o'oORMAN. 339 We want that our Goverinent shall keep the nation's faith in- violate, fulfill all its just obligations, respecting and protecting all rights, all interests, not only of the public creditors, but of the debtor people. We want that the individual rights and dignity of our citizens be better respected by public servants ; we want no insolence in office, no assumption by any class or clique of the right to rule. We. want that all men, poor and rich, artisan and millionaire, shall be equal in the eye of the law, so that the Declaration of Independence shall not be a mere sounding phrase, but a wholesome fact. We want union, real, active, substantial, all through the republic, so that all men may think and work together for the common weal. These objects, I am sure, all the people desire to attain. It is for you to consider which of the two parties claiming your con- fidence is most able and most willing to carry out these objects. But think of these things for yourselves. Remember it is your own fate and the fate of all you hold most dear which is at stake. Let all the people rise to the level of their great duty. Let the sovereign ascend the throne and take the sceptre in his hand. That sovereign never dies. Forms of government change ; dynasties perish ; empires fall ; riches take wings and flee ; war devastates ; great cities decay ; the people alone re- main — conquest cannot kill it. Tyranny strives in vain to ex- haust its power of endurance. Sometimes it sleeps and men forget it ; sometimes it forgets itself ; but, like letters written in invisible ink, which only become legible when held to the fire, so in the flame of great emergency — in the stress and storm of great crisis, the spirit of the people start into life. Citizens of the great Republic, your hour is come. It is you now who are on trial. Only through your fault or folly can the Republic fall. Be true to your great record. Be equal to your great past. Across the chasm of a hundred years, your pre- decessors — the fathers and founders of this nation — speak to you to-day : "We watched over the cradle of the Republic," say they. " We protected its infancy from harm, and history, with pen of light, has written our names on her scroll of honor. Our work I-J40 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. lasted for one hundred years. Shall it be your wretched fate to watch the Republic in its decline and to follow it to its grave ? Have we no answer to give? Have the thousand voices of this great city no meaning ? Is there no response in all this magnificent festival, which reigns over all our land to-day ? Ay, there is. The chimes from the high steeples ring the answer out ; antham and hymn appeal to Heaven to witness its truth. This Republic shall live and not die. For a hundred years to come, it shall be prosperous, honored, free. This is our declaration. This promise we make to the past and to the future, and as our predecessors a hundred years ago, so say we. In support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on Divine Providence, we pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP. AN ORATION BY JUDGE H. A. GILDERSLEVE, AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT IRVING HALL, NEW YORK. CITY, JULY 4th, 1876. Fellow-Citizens : — We are gathered here to-day from "every quarter of this great metropolis, imbued with a common pur- pose and actuated by a common motive, which every individual present understands full well. Our ears are straining to hear and our minds are eager to receive the words of gratitude, patriotism and liberty — the themes to-day of 40,000,000 of free- men. Our hearts are swelling to greet these sentiments, and with shouts of applause to waft them on until they echo amid the white hills of the East and the mountains of the far West, or die away on the placid gulf of the South. One hundred years of liberty and union ! Not every year of peace and quiet, but if maintained sometimes by battle and blood so much the richer and dearer. Shall we not be pardoned on this day for manifestations of pride at the success of the Republic ? The history of the world shows the people of every nation possess, instinctively, pride and love of country, and are we not justly proud of our country, which can point to more progress and more great achievement in a single century than have been vouchsafed to any other nation in a decade of centuries ? The love of country ! Time cannot efface it, Nor distance dim its heaven descended light ; Nor adverse fame nor fortune e'er deface it. It dreads no tempest and it knows no night. Who would not be an American citizen and claim a home in these United States ? It has a home, bread and raiment for the family of every honest industrious man, no matter under what skies his eyes first saw the light of day, nor by what lan- guage he could be heard. Our lands are broad and free to all. The latch-string that opens to Uncle Sam's domain hangs ever 342 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. on the outside, and honest emigrants are always welcome within our borders. We try to-day to show our gratitude to the noble men who secured our independence and laid the foundation of our prosperity. What a pleasant task ; but oh, how difficult ! We have no memory rich with thankfulness that is not theirs. We have no praise rich with reverence that is not theirs. The world never saw more unselfish or truer patriots. No legislative hall ever held wiser statesmen. Our liberty is the fruit of their labor and sacrifice. At the mention of the name of the humblest of their numbers we now bow in humble adoration and thanks- giving. May this warm affection never cool in the hearts of the American people ; may we never tire in studying the early his- tory of our Republic and the characters and lives of the great men who forged for us so strong and well the pillars of liberty and equality. They are the boasted strength of our government and the envy of the other nations of the world. The past is a sure and safe guard by which to build hereafter. Our history assures us of the bright and lasting future if we but cling to the sheet anchor of our safety, the Constitution of the United States, and in harmonious accord remain loyal to our country's flag — emblem of liberty, "flag of the free heart's hope and home." And when thrones shall have crumbled into dust, when scepters and diadems shall have long been forgotten, the flag of our Republic shall still wave on, and its stars, its stripes, its eagle shall still float in pride and strength and glory over the whole land ; not a stripe erased or polluted, or a single star obscured. THE HAND OF GOD IN AMEEIOAN HISTORY. A DISCOURSE BY REV. MORGAN DIX, D. I)., DELIVERED AT TRINITY CHURCH, NEW YORK, JULY 4tH, 187t>. Glory be to God ! and here, throughout the land, far and near, through all our homes, be peace, good will and love. As one family, as one people, as one nation, we keep the birthday of our rights, our liberty, our power and strength. Let us do this with eyes and hearts raised to the Fountain of all life, the Beginning of all glory and might ; with words of praise and thanks to God who rules on high ; fur He is the living God and steadfast power, and His kingdom that which shall not be des- troyed, and His dominion shall be even unto the end. Where- fore as He is our strength and hope, let all begin and all go on, first and ever, with glory to God Most High. There are great things to think about to-day ; the growth of the people, unpara- lelled in history ; the vastness of their empire, a wonder of the latter days ; the bands by which the mighty frame is held to- gether — so slight to the eye, so hard to break ; the many races welded into one ; the marvellous land, with its oceans on all sides, its lakes themselves like lesser oceans, its icebergs and gla- ciers, its torrid deserts, its mountain ranges and rich, fat valley land, its climates of all kinds, its rivers, which would have seem- ed of all but fabulous length, its wealth in all that rock, and earth, and water can supply ; and then the people — active, able, full of enterprise and force, acting with the power of a myriad of giants, speaking one language, living under one flag, bound by common interests, and, as to-day, kindled by one common feel- ing of devotion, pride, joy, hope, sure there is enough to think about to-day, enough to fill the soul and almost make the head giddy. But let these things be spoken of elsewhere ; let others dwell upon them. We have a definite share in the national cel- ebration : let us not forget our part, which is to lift to God a 344 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. great voice which He shall hear amid all the other voices of the hour. Why do we gather here? Is it to recount the praises of men and their, mighty achievements ? Is it to make display of our national greatness, to tell over our victories and conqu< ssts in divers scenes of conflict, to celebrate the names and acts of chieftains, statesmen, and rulers of the land, of brave and pa- tient people who gave fortune, life, and sacred honor to the State, of any of those who deserve remembrance to-day ? Let this be done elsewhere, as is right and fitting ; let men stand up when it is convenient, and set oration and address do honor to the dead and the living, point the moral of our history, hold up the ideals' of patriotism, virtue, and unselfish love of home and native land. But we must be about our Father's business ; we have other words to speak, deeper, further -reaching ; our work here is to offer praise and glory to God ; to bless Him in His relations to the nation as its Lord and King, as Kuler and Governor, as Providence, law-giver, and Judge. "Without God nothing of what we properly value to-day could have been. Without God there could have been no nation, nor nation's birthday. It is He that hath made us and kept us one. The office of the Church is to bless and sanctify the nation's feast day. She cannot be indifferent nor unmoved. We are citizens of the earthly house as well as of the heavenly. We act in that double capacity in praising God Almighty, while with our brethren we keep the feast. And oh ! what ground for thankfulness to-day. Think of the mighty hand that hath led us and upheld us through these hundred years — what it has done for us — what that right hand of the Most High hath wrought ! Look back to the hum- ble beginnings — to the poor little Colonists with their scant store, and their modest ambitions ; think of their long-suffering patience, and also of their honorable resolve not to submit to oppression and injustice ; remember the band of men who met together, just one hundred years ago, to sign the Declaration, how they did it — not, as popular legends tell us, with transports of enthusiasm and amid bell-ringing and general jubilation, but in secret session of Congress. With an awful sense of what it meant. With a vision of the gibbet and the axe before their A DISCOURSE — KEV. MORGAN DIX. 345 eyes, and well aware of the toil, and blood, and grief that it must cost to maintain their manly attitude before the world. Think with what dread and sinking of heart, with what tears and part- ings, with what conflicts of spirit, and what doubts as to the duty of the hour, the foundations were laid ; and let us have a tender heart toward the old fathers of the State, the men who took their lives in their hands, and so brought the new nation to the birth, and then amid what untold trials aud sufferings they carried on their war ! Think of the great hearts ready to break, of the starved and ragged armies with that mighty spirit under their hunger-worn ribs, more frequently retreating than advancing, wasted by sickly summer heat, and often in winter standing barefoot in snow ; that squalid, sorrowful, anxious force working their sure way through cloud, and storm, and darkness to the victory, perfect and finished, at the end. It is touching to read the memorials of those days, and to think of all that has come since then ; how we are entered into their labors, and are at peace because they went through all that ; they sowed in tears and we reap in joy. So then let there be thanks to God for the past, out of which He has evoked the present grandeur of our State, and let us remember what we owe to those who went before, for a part of that debt is obvious ; to imitate the virtues and return to the simple mind, the pure intention, the unselfish d votion to the public weal which marked the founders of the Republic. It is a far cry to those days, but there still shine the stars which guided them on their way, the light of heaven illuminating the earth, the bright beacons of honesty, truth, simplicity, sincerity, self-sacrifice, under which, as under an astrological sign, the little one was born. Pray heaven those holy lights of morality and public virtue may not, for us, already have utterly faded away. Surely it is a marvellous thing to see how nations rise and grow ; how they gather strength ; how they climb to the meridian of their noonday light and glory ; how they blaze awhile, invested with their fullest splendors at that point, and thence how they decline and rush downward into the evening, and the night, and the darkness of a long, dead sleep, whence none can awake any more. This history is not made without God. His hand is in it all. His decrees on 316 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. nation and State are just, in perfect justice, as on each one of us men. And must it all be told over again in our case ? Is there no averting the common doom? Must each people but repeat the monotonous history of those who went before? God only knows how long the course will be till all shall be ac- complished. But certainly we, the citizens, may do something ; we may live pure, honest, sober lives, for the love of country also, as well as for the love of Christ. We may, by taking good heed to ourselves, help to purify the whole nation, and so obtain a lengthening of our tranquility. We want much more of this temper ; wc need to feel that each man helps, in his own way, to save or to destroy his country. Every good man is a reason \ in God's eyes why He should spare the nation and prolong its ] life ; every bad man, in his vicious, selfish, evil life, is a reason why God should break up the whole system to which that worthless, miserable being belongs. If we love our country with a true, real love we shall show it by contributing in ourselves to the sum of collective righteous- ness what it may be in our power, aided by God's grace, to give. They are not true men who have no thanks to bring to the Lord this day. They are not true men who simply shout and cry, and make noisy demonstration, and speak great swell- ing words, without reason, or reflection, or any earnest thought to duty, to God, and the State. From neither class can any good come ; not from the senselessly uproarous, not from the livid and gloomy children of discontent. They were thought- ful, patriotic, self-sacrificing men who built this great temple of civil and religious liberty. By such men only can it be kept in repair and made to stand for ages and ages. No kingdom of this world can last forever, yet many endure to a great age The old mother country, England, in her present constitutional form, is more than 800 years old — a good age, a grand age, with, we trust and pray, many bright centuries to come here- after, as good, as fair. Let us remember that for us, as for all people, length of days and long life and peace depend on the use we make of our gifts, on the fidelity with which we dis- charge our mission. And that is the reason why every one of us has, in part, his country's life in his own hands, ,But I A DISCOURSE REV. MORGAN DIX. 347 detain you from the duty of the hour. We meet to praise not man, but God ; to praise Him with a reasonable and devout purpose ; to bless him for our first century, for this day which He permits us to see, for our homes, our liberties, our peace our place among the powers of the earth. It is all from him, whatever good we have, and to him let us ascribe the honor and the glory. And let us say, with them of old time. "Blessed art Thou, O Lord God of our fathers ; ;ind to be praised and exalted above all forever. And Blessed is Thy glorious and holy name ; and to be praised and exalted above all forever. Blessed art Thou in the temple of Thine holy glory ; and to be praised and glorified above all forever. Blessed art Thou that beholdest the depths and sittest upon the cherubims; and to be praised and exalted above all for- ever. Blessed art Thou in the glorious throne of thy kingdom ; to be praised and glorified above all forever. Blessed art Thou in the firmament of heaven ; and above all to be praised and glorified forever. Yea, let us bless the Most High, and praise and honor Him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing ; and He cloeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth." The exercises closed with the benediction by Right Rev. Horatio Potter, D. D., Bishop of the Diocese. OUR TIAGc. BY REV. H. II. BIRKINS. DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NEW YORK CITY, JULY 4, 1876. Mr. Chairman : — One of the most conspicuous and pleas- ing objects in our broad land to-day, is the starry emblem of freedom — our dear old flag. We see it, a centennial spectacle, floating everywhere, as we never saw it before, and as we never shall see it again. It is unfurled along our highways, it adorns our public and private dwellings, it floats over our temples of worship, our halls of learning and coiuts of justice, and waves as grandly and gracefully over the lowest cottage in the land, as over the proud dome of the capital itself. It is our flag, with sweet centennial memories clinging to every fold, our flag along whose stiipes we may trace the triumphant march of one hundred years, and from whose stars we see the light of hope and liberty still flashing upon the nations. The origin of our flag is, to some extent, involved in mystery and controversy. It has been claimed by some that its stars aud stripes were first taken from the shield of the Washington family, which was distinguished by colored lines and stars ; and if this be so, it is not at all improbable, though by no means certain, that Washington himself may have suggested the pe- culiar form of the flag. The first distinctively American flag was unfurled to the breeze on the first day of January, 1776. It consisted of " seven white and seven red stripes," and bore upon its front the " red and white crosses of St. George and St. Andrew," and was called " The Great Union Flag." This flag quickly displaced all other military devices, and became the bat- tle-banner of the American Army. In 1777, however, it was greatly changed. The crosses were omitted and thirteen red and white stripes were used to denote the thirteen States, and OtJE FLAG — H. H. BIRKlNS. 349 thirteen stars were used to represent the union of those States. And our flag still retains its stars occasionally adding one to the number, and, as traitors know to their sorrow, it also still re- tains its stripes, well laid on. We have never found it necessary to ask true American citizens to respect and honor our flag. When Gen. Dix, on the 29th of January, 1861, penned those terse memorable words : " If any one attempts to haul down the American flag shoot him on the spot ; " the loyal people of the nation said, "Amen. So let it be." We do not wonder that our people, and especially our soldiers love the flag. It is to them both a history and a prophecy. No wonder that brave soldier as he fell on the field of battle said, " Boys, don't wait for me ; just open the folds of the old flag and let me see it once more before I die." No wonder that Massachusetts soldier boy, dying in the gory streets of • Baltimore, lifted up his glazing eyes to the flag and shouted, " All hail, the stars and the stripes ! ! ! " Our flag is a power everywhere. One has justly said, " It is known, respected and feared round the entire globe. Wherever it goes, it is the re- cognized symbol of intelligence, equality, freedom and Christian civilization. Wherever it goes the immense power of this great Republic goes with it, and the hand that touches the honor of the flag, touches the honor of the Republic itself. On Sj>anish soil, a man entitled to the protection of our government was arrested and condemned to die. The American consul inter- ceded for his life, but was told that the man must suffer death. The hour appointed for the execution came, and Spanish guns, gleaming in the sunlight, were ready for the work of death. At that critical moment the American consul took our flag, and folded its stars and stripes around the person of the doomed man, and then turning to the soldiers, said : " Men, reniember that a single shot through that flag will be avenged by the entire power of the American Republic." That shot was never fired. And that man, around whom the shadows of death were gather- ing, was saved by the stars and the stripes. ' Dear old flag ! Thou art a power at home and abroad. Our fathers loved thee in thine infancy, one hundred years ago ; our heroic dead loved thee, and we loved thee, at A fondly clasp thee to our hearts to- H/jO OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. day. All thy stars gleam like gems of beauty on thy brow, and all thy stripes beam upon the eye like bows of promise to the nation. Wave on, thou peerless, matchless banner of the free ! Wave on, over the army and the navy, over the land and the sea, over the cottage and the palace, over the school and the church, over the living and the dead ; wave ever more, " O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." OUR NATIONAL INFLUENCE. AN ADDRESS BY REV. THOS. ARMITAGE, D.D. DELIVERED IN THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION HALL, NEW YORK CITY, JULY 4TH, 1876. We stand to-day, nationally, very much like a school of boys passing up into a higher grade of education. Hitherto, we have been but in the primary department. The revolution of 1176, was based not merely upon legislative measures, but the struggle was begun and completed, upon the great underlying principles of human nature itself. Anchored to these princi- ples success was certain and perfect. Freedom, and the love of freedom, have been the glory of our history as a nation. Just where we have been free we have been strong, and just where we have not been free, we have been week. Yet, in a century, through which inexperience has been feeling its way, our nation has wrought out, and put into practical operation, the freest constitution in the world, — or I would rather say, the only free popular constitution in history. This instrument is the production of growth, having attained its present per- fection by a series of progressive steps, or amendments, without taking one step backwards. Now, the solitary grandeur of this bond consists in the fact, that it does not cover one of those old crimes against the citizen which has always been perpetrated against him under the highest civilization in Europe. We boast to-day, that the foot of a slave does not press Ameri- can soil. But is this all ? Ought not every just mind, to re- member with gratitude, that America has never originated any system of bondage. That dark system of slavery, which cost us so dearly, was bequeathed to us by the Dutch, the French, the Spainish and the English. The old American Colonies were almost unanimously arrayed against it, from Massachusetts to Georgia. (Jeorgia, declared that it was " against the gospel and the English law," and was a " horrid crime." Virginia, 352 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE earnestly petitioned the Crown to allow her total exemption from it, alleging, that it would " endanger her very existence ;" and South Carolina resisted the imposition of slavery upon her as an outrage. But British cupidity insisted that the system, including the slave trade, was necessary in the colonies, to the building up of British commerce : therefore, the mother country turned a deaf ear to the wishes of the colonies, and forced slavery upon them against their consciences — against their rights — and againsi their remonstrances. More than that, she actually made a treaty with Spain, by which she was to enjoy the monopoly of the slave trade, and pledged herself to import 144,000 slaves into the "West Indies within thirty years ; and Queen Anne and Philip, took half the stock between them. Hence, when the Republic came into being, slavery was found in every colony. As well as they could, the fathers of our country began to re- move it at once. The world had been balancing the question of freedom and bondage for thousands of years. Asia had in- vestigated it, as best she could under the light of her civililiza- tion. Africa had attempted to solve the difficulty — and Europe had legislated upon it in every form. But it was left for the American colonies to say to the world, for the first time, on the 4th of July, 1716, that "All men are bom, free and equal." This avowal astonished the world, as if it were a formidable heresy; but when American democracy sealed it in patriotic blood, the world was thunderstruck, for no nation had ever thought of stamping the seal of its blood on that doctrine be- fore. And, from that day to this, in one hundred years, the American Republic has done more for liberty and against bondage than all other people had done before. Britain is en- titled to great credit for her West Indian emancipation. But it cost her half a century of bitter agitation before she could adopt that high policy, as well as great treasure. Even then, she adopted it merely as a policy and paid for it as a bargain, failing largely to bring down the doctrine of freedom to the question of man's rights as the root of his humanity. Peter Bayne, one of her ablest sons, says on this point: "With a look of magnanimity, justice, and love, Biitain un- ADDRESS — REV. THOS. ARMITAGE. 353 chained her slaves ; with a superb generosity, she paid down twenty millions, and washed from her hands the stain of blood. The nations of the earth looked on in admiration ; from the four corners of the world came shouts of applause. It seemed indubitable that it had been an act of justice and humanity to the negro. But the plaudits were premature. If appearances could be trusted, it was not the negro but herself Britain had spared." She did not move a step in her West India policy, till she was well persuaded that it was for her fiscal interests to do so, and then, the measures which she adopted to free herself of slavery, were those which half a dozen of the American States had already adopted ; always excepting, that they freed their slaves without remuneration, while she claimed and paid to her- self their full monied value. Meanwhile, without being the author of the slave system, our nation has quietly gone forward* working out the problem of the Declaration of Independence, and in a century, on the principle that slavery jeoparded the liberties of the nation, has made this the home of free men only, and forever. Then, again, we ought to give thanks, no less, because, the influence of our nation has been extremely wholesome upon othe nations; chiefly, through the influence of this Republic the late French empire failed to bring Mexico back to monarchical institutions, under Maxamilian. And, certainly, no weU informed man can doubt that the moral weight of example on the part of the United States has been very great upon the modern political history of France herself. The present constitutional Republic of France, built up over the grave of Napoleon III., and con- formed so largely to the model of our own, sufficiently attests this. Then again, the power of the American States has been immensely felt upon the destinies of Spain. Unfit from want of proper educational culture, for the liberties of a firm republic, she has made the attempt to found one, with anamount of success that has astonished those who are best acquainted with her intel- lectual and moral status. The form thereof has passed away for the present, but the seeds of civil and religious liberty have been sown in her constitution and institutions, so freely and efficiently, that they can never be uprooted hereafter. And most of all, the 354 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. reflex influence of this country upon Great Britain herself, has been, and is still felt. In many respects the influence acting back and forth between the two nations, the one upon the other, has been reciprocal, as would be natural, arising from a com- mon origin of language, blood, common law and religion, to say nothing of the mutual interests of commerce. But in all politi- cal aspects, our political life has had a leavening influence upon tbem tenfold greater than theirs has been upon us. Within my own memory Roman Catholics could not sit in the English Parliament, and a jew could not be a British citizen. Now, all this is done away with, and as in our own country, no religious test is applied in her parliamentary representation so that the Catholic commoner and peer sit side by side with their Protest- ant fellow-citizens, and a native Jew is Premier of the empire. With the overthrow of religious caste in her parliament, Eng- land has abandoned her Stamp Act upon newspapers, leaving the press free in more senses than one — has extended her suf- frage, till it is all but universal — has granted the right of the ballot — abolished religious tests in her universities — disestab- lished the Irish Church— and made merit and not purchase the price of promotion in her army. All these are American meas- ures, and for all these, and many other things, we should give thanks to God ; these blessings are from Him. And as to the future, let us resolve to conserve all our liber- ties more jealously than ever. It is with pain that we think of any bigot amongst us breathing the thought that the proscrip- tion of Roman Catholics in the United States is within the pos- sibility of toleration. I feel ashamed when I hear men say that the Catholic and his religion have no right here, for the claim is a most prepostrous one. Did not Roman Catholics discover America ? Have they not mingled their blood with other patriots, first in securing the independence of the United States from Britain, and then in perpetuating its liberties in the late civil war? Who were Carroll and Rosecrans and Sheridan, but Catholics ? besides thousands of other patriots, whose names will be dear to the country while it stands. And it is not a little mortifying that the two great political conven- tions recently held have not yet learned that proscription of ADDKESS THOS. AKM1TAGE. 355 the Mongolian is just as odious to true American principles on the subject of human rights, as the bondage of negroes, and the persecution of Jews or Catholics. If " all men are born free and equal," and this utterance means anything but an empty- avowal, then, Mongolians have as much right here as Africans, or Europeans, or anybody else, and are entitled to the same liberties. I apprehend that the men of a hundred years to come will blush to think that black men or white — Jew or heathen — skeptic or Christian — can be questioned as to their right to a home in this land, and to protection under its banner, as com- ing of their rightful inheritance in common with others, to all the immunities of men, and that simply on the ground that they are " men.' 1 CENTENNIAL ODE. BY WILLIAM CULLEN - BRYAXT. SUNG AT NEW YOEK, JULY 4, 1876, Through storm and calm the years have lead Our nation on from stage to stage A century's space until we tread The threshold of another age. We see there, o'er our pathway swept, A torrent stream of blood and fire ; And thank the ruling power who kept Our sacred league of States entire. Oh ! checkered train of years, farewell, With all thy strifes and hopes and fears ; But with us let thy memories dwell, To warn and lead the coming years. And thou, the new beginning age, Warned by the past and not in vain, Write on a fairer, whiter page The record of thy happier reign. THE ADVANCE OF A CENTUEY, AN ORATION BY REV. HENRY WARD BEEOHER. DELIVERED AT PEEKSKILL, N. Y., JULY 4TH, 1876. Of all the places on this Continent, where, from political con- siderations, vast assemblies should gather to-day, there is no place that can equal Philadelphia, where that orator and states- man and civilian, Evarts, is holding in rapt attention the great crowds. Yet if it be not a question of political but of military interest, I know of no other point throughout the land where the people may more fitly assemble for retrospect and for pride than in this goodly place of Peekskill. For we stand in the very centre of the military operations that were during the Revolution conducted in the northern part of the country. The great ferry— the King's Ferry, by which chief communica- tion was had between all New England and New Jersey and Pennsylvania, within whose bounds there was the greatest part of the population of the county — lies right opposite to us. This is the centre of the scene of that vast drama. Around this region was that great drama played — the treachery of Arnold and the sad recompense upon Andre. In these streets our armies have trod. In this town, indeed, Washington dated the commission which was the last received by Arnold at the hands of his countrymen. Off upon this bay hovered the British fleet. A hundred years have passed since this region was the theatre of such stirring scenes and vicissitudes. A hundred years is a long period in the life of a man — a short period in the life of a nation. A hundred years ! It is eighteen hun- dred since the Advent. A thousand years scarcely take us back beyond the beginning of European nations in their mod- ern form. A hundred years is scarcely the " teens " to which nations come. And it seldom happens that any nation has for its thousand such a hundred years as that which has been 358 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. vouchsafed to us. From a population of scant three millions, including the slave pojralation, we have swelled to more than forty millions. Then a small strip of settled territory lined the Atlantic. Almost no foot except the pioneer's had trod the mountain path, or had pressed the soil of the country beyond. Now the Atlantic and the Pacific are joined by the wire and by the iron road, and that has come to pass in reality which in the Scripture is spoken of in poetry — " Deep answers unto deep ;" and the ocean breaks upon one shore to be answered by the other ; and all the way across the thickly-settled communities — towns and cities innumerable. And yet this is but small as compared with the augmentation of material interests. The wealth that scarcely now is com- putable, the industries that thrive, the inventions, the discov- eries, the organizations of labor and of capital, the vast spread of the industries through the valleys and over the hills — who can estimate that of the early day which was but as a seed com- pared with that of our day which waves like Lebanon ? And yet what are machines, ships and rails — what are granaries and roads and canals — what are herds upon a thousand hills — • what are all these in comparison with man ? All labor and the products of labor are valuable only as they promote the virtue and the comfort of man — only as they promote the manhood which is in man. Though we had a quadrupled wealth, yet if the people were decayed or enfeebled, what would our pros- perity be worth ? Not worth the assembling here to look back upon, or to look forward to. The value of our material growth is to be estimated by its effect upon the people. What, then, has been the history of a hundred years in re- gard to the people of America ? Are they as virtuous as they were a hundred years ago ? Are they as manly as they were a hundred years ago ? Are they as intelligent, are they as re- ligious as they were a hundred years ago ? Not only that — have these individuals that we shall find, perhaps, as we ex- amine, to be more or less religious, moral, intelligent, happy — have they learned anything in that highest of all arts, the art of man to live with man — the art of organizing society, of con- ducting government, of promoting the common weal through ORATION REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 359 broad spaces and through vast multitudes ? What is the his- tory of the people ? What are we to-day ? What our fathers were we know. Their life was spent ; their history was regis- tered ; we read what they were, and form an estimate of them with gratitude to God ; but what are we, their sons ; Have we shrunk ? Are we unworthy of their names and places and functions, which have been transmitted from their hands to ours ? What are the laws, what are the institutions, what is the Government, what are the policies of this great nation, re- deemed from foreign thrall to home independence ? Are they committed to puny hands, or is manhood broadened and strengthened and ennobled ? Look then at our population. See what it is, spread abroad through all the land. It might almost be said that America represents every nation on the globe better than the nation re- presents itself. We have the best things they have got in Ireland, for we have stripped her almost bare. We have the canny Scotchman in great numbers among us, though not enough for our own good, and too many for Scotland's good. We have the Englishman among us, and are suspected our- selves of having English blood in our veins ! We have also those from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia even, Germany, Austria and Hungary, Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland. We can cull from all these nations out of our population men in large numbers of whom they are not ashamed, and for whom we are grateful. We have our fields tilled by foreign hands, and our roads built by them. This is a matter of political economy ; but the question which I propose to you is, What are they as component elements of a new American stock ? Do you believe in stock — do you believe in blood? I do. Do you believe in "crossing" judiciously ? Do you believe that the best blood of all nations will ultimate by and by in a better race than the primitive and the incomplex races ? Mixed now in kindly alliance we have fortified and en- riched our blood ; we have called the world to be our father and the father of our posterity ; and there never was a time in the history of this nation when the race stock had in it so much that was worth the study of the physiologist and philauthro- 360 OUB. NATIONAL JUBILEE. pist as to-day. We are enriched beyond the power of grat- itude. I for one regard all the inconveniences of foreign mixtures, the difference of language, the difference of customs, the difference of religion, the difference in domestic arrange- ments — I regard all these inconveniences as a trifle ; but the augmentation of power, of breadth, of manhood, the promise of the future, is past all computation ; and there never was, there never began to be iu the early day, such promise of physical vigor and of beauty and energy and life as there is to- day upon this continent. And now consider not only that this race-stock for these reasons is made a better one than that which existed a hundred years ago, but that the conditions of existence among the whole population are becter than they were a hundred years ago. We not only wear better heads, but we have better bellies, with better food in them. We have also better clothes now. In other words, the art of liviug healthily has advanced immensely ; and though cities have enlarged, and though the causes of danger to sanitary conditions are multiplied, science has kept pace ; and there never was a time, I will not say in our own history, but in the history of any nation on the globe, when the conditions of life \vere so wholesome, the conditions of hap- piness so universally diffused, as they are to-day in this great land. We grumble — we inherit that from our ancestors ; we often mope and vex ourselves with melancholy prognostications concerning this and that danger. Some men are born to see the devil of melancholy ; they would see him sitting in the very door of heaven, methinks ! Not I ; for though there be mis- chiefs and troubles, yet when we look at the great conditions of human life in society, they have been augmented favorably, and they never were so favorable as they are to-day. More than that : if you look at the diversity of the industries by which men ply their hands, if you look at the accumulating power of the average citizen, you will find that it is in the power of a man to earn more in a single ten years of his life to-day than for our ancestors in the whole breadth of their life. The heavens are nearer to us than they were to them : for we have learned the secrets of the storm and of the subtle lisrhtninsr. ORATION REV. HENRY "WARD BEECHER. 361 The earth itself is but just outside our door-yard. We can now call to xVsia and the distant part of the earth easier than they could to Boston or Philadelphia a hundred years ago : and all the fleets of the world bring hither the tiibute of the globe, and that not for the rich man and the sumptous liver, but for the common folks of the land to which we all belong. The houses in which we live are better ; better warmed in winter — and our summers are well warmed too. The implements by which the common man works are multiplied ; the processes which he can control, and which are so organized in society that he gets the reflex benefit of them, are incalculable. And all that the soil has, all that the sea has, all that the mountain locks up, and all that is invisible in the atmosphere, are so many servitors work- ing in this great democratic land for the multitude, for the great mass of the common people. We are in that regard advanced far beyond the days of our fathers ; for then they had not es- caped from the hereditary influences of aristocratic thoughts, aristocratic classes, or aristocratic tendencies even in govern- ment. But the progress of democracy — which is not merely political, but which is in religion, in literature, in art, and even in mechanics — the great wave of democratic influence has been for a hundred years washing in further and further toward the feet of the common people. And to-day there is not on the face of the globe another forty millions that have such amplitude of sphere, such strength of purpose, such instruments to their hand, such capital, such opportunity, such happiness. And that leads me to speak — going aside from the common people indi- vidually or as in classes — of their institutions, and let me begin where you began, in the household. What is the family and the household to-day as compared with the family and the household a hundred years ago ? Time is a great magnifying medium. "We look back a hundred years and think that things in the household and society must have been better and finer than they are to-day. No, no. If there has been one thing that has grown silently, without measure- ment, without estimation and without appreciation, it has been the scope, the richness, the happiness, the purity, the intelli- gence, of the American household. For, although there were 3(52 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. here and there notable mansions; here and there not able house- holds of truth, intelligence and virtue in the olden time yet we are concerned with the averages ; and the average American household is wiser to-day than it was a hundred years ago. There is more material for thought, for comfort and for home loving to-day, in the ordinary workman's house, than there was a hundred years ago in one of a hundred rich men's mansions. For no man among us is so poor — unless he drinks whiskey too much ; no man that was well born among us (and to be well born is, first, to be born at all, and secondly, to be born out of virtuons parents, who set the child good examples) — no man that has been well born in this land is so poor as to stand at the bottom of the ladder for twenty years. No man in this country needs to do that, unless there has been some radical de- fect in his birth or his training. The laborer ought to be ashamed of himself who in twenty years does not own the ground his house stands on, and the house unmortgaged ; who has not in that house provided carpets for the rooms, who has china in his cupboards, who has not his chromos, who has not some piciure or portrait hanging upon the walls, who has not some books nestling on the shelf, who has not a household that calls home the sweetest place on earth. This is not at all a picture of the future ; it is a picture of the homes of the work- ingmen of America. The average workingmen live better to- day in the household and in the family than they did a hundred years ago. We have come to it stealthily, without record or ob- servation ; yet it is none the less true that the average condi- tion of the household for domestic comfort has gone up more than one per cent, for every year of the last hundred years. But that is not all. The members of the household also have developed, and chiefly she into whose hand God put the rudder of time. For if Eve plucked the apple that Adam might help her eat it, she has been beforehand with him and has steered him ever since. The household that has a bad woman may have an angel for a husband, but he is helpless. The household that has a brute for a husband is safe if the woman be God's own woman. It has long been a proverb that a man is what his wife will let him be. It is more than a proverb that the ORATION REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 3G3 children are what the mother makes them. She is the legislator of the household ; she is the judge that sits upon the throne of love. All severity comes from love in a mother's hand ; she is the educator ; she also is the atonement when sins and trans- gressions have brought children to shame. The altar of peni- tence is at the mother's knee, and not the heart of God knows better how to forgive than she. Now if womanhood has gone down, woe be to us; for the richer we are and the stronger we are the worse we are; but if womanhood has gone up in intelli- gence, in influence, in virtue and religion, then the country is safe, though its fleets were sunk and its cities were burned, though its crops were mildewen and blasted. For easy is re- covery where the head forces are sound ; but where there is corruption at the initial point of power all outward adjuvants and helps are in vain. And I declare that in the last hundred years woman, who before had brooded and blossomed in aristocratic circles, has in America come to blossom through democratic circles, and is in America to-day undisputed and uncontradicted what before she has been allowed to be only when she had a coronet upon her brow, or some scepter of power in her hand. Not only is she unvailed, not only is she permitted to show her face where men do congregate, not only is she a power in the silence of the house, but she has become in the church a teacher ; and Paul from a thousand years ago may in vain now say, " Let not your women teach in the church." They cannot go there without being teachers and silent letters. They are the books and epis- tles that are known and read of all men. They have come to such a degree of knowledge, they have come to such a use of intellectual treasure, they have so learned how to dispose of that primal and highest gift, moral intuition, which God gave to them in excess over man, as that never before in any land, certainly never in our own, was womanhood at such a point of power and influence as the present day. Nor has she done growings That power which was latent and indirectly applied is seeking for itself channels that shall be direct and influential. You may die too soon*to see, as many have died before they saw the beatific vision, but you that live long enough will see woman 3G4 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. vote, and when you see woman voting you will see less lying, less selfishness, less brutality, and more public spirit and hero- ism and romance in public affairs. I do not propose to discuss the question at any length with you, but I cannot fail to recog- nize, with thanksgiving, that steady advance which is sure to make woman a voter in this generation. In the beginning of our history no man could vote who was not a member of the church; and, by the way, the deacons, to relieve the church members from the trouble of calling at the ballot-boxes, took their hats and went around and coUected the votes from house to house; but deacons in those days were trustworthy. After a little a man was allowed to vote, though he did not belong to the church, if he was a white man and owned property to a certain amount, and that was the first step in augmentation of suffrage and the widening of its distribution. After a time it became necessary to knock down even that ex- ception. Franklin labored with might and main to this end, and employed that significant argument : "If a man may not vote unless he is a property-holder to the amount of one hun- dred dollars, and he owns an ass that is worth just a hundred dollars, and to-day the ass is well and he votes, but to-morrow the ass dies, and he cannot vote — which votes, the ass or the man ?" The property qualification disappeared before the demo- cratic wave, which washed it all away. Then came the question of foreigners' voting. They were not allowed to vote except upon long probation. Like many of your fences, one rail after another fell down, until the fence that at first was so high that it could not be jumped, became so low that anything could jump it that wanted to ; and in New York now they jump it quite easily. But the day is coming, and I hope very soon, when this pretense of limitation will itself be taken away, and every man that means in good faith to settle here shall have it proclaimed to him, the moment he stands here, " You are not to partake of the protection of our laws without bearing your own personal responsibility for the exe- cution of those laws." I would make every man vote the mo- ment he touches the soil of this country.* The next step to this was the admission of the colored man ORATOtN — REV. HENRY WARD SEECHER. 3G5 to the franchise. This was the boldest thing that ever was done. It is said that it was a war measure. It was necessarily so connected with the war as to come under that general desig- nation ; and I aver that no land ever, even in war, did so brave and bold a thing as to take from the plantation a million black men who could not read the Constitution or the spelling-book, and who could hardly tell one hand from the other, and permit them to vote, in the sublime faith that liberty, which makes a man competent to vote, would render him fit to discharge the duties of the voter. And I beg to say, as I am bound to say, that when this one million unwashed black men came to vote, though much disturbance occurred — as much disturbance al- ways occurs upon great changes — they proved themselves worthy of the trust that had been confided to them. Before emancipation the black man was the most docile laborer that the world ever saw. During the war, when he knew that his liberty was the gage, when he knew the battle was to decide whether he should or should not be free, although the country for hundreds of miles was stripped bare of able-bodied white men, and though property and the lives of the women and chil- dren were at the mercy of the slave, there never was an instance of arson, or assassination, or rapine, or conspiracy, and there never was an uprising. They stood still, conscious of their power, and said, " We will see what God will do for us." Such a history has no parallel. 'And since they began to vote, I beg leave to say, in closing this subject, that they have voted just as wisely and patriotically as their late masters did before the emancipation. And now there is but one step more. We permit the lame, the halt, and the blind to go to the ballot-box ; we permit the foreigner and the black man, the slave and the freeman, to par- take of suffrage ; there is but one thing left out ; and that is the mother that taught us, and the wife that is thought worthy to walk side by side with us. It is woman that is put lower than the slave — lower than the ignorant foreigner. She is put among the paupers and the insane whom the law will not allow to vote. But the days are numbered in which the exclusion can take place. 366 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. So in a hundred years suffrage has extended its bounds until it includes the whole population, and there is nothing left that will not vote in less than another hundred years, unless it be the power-loom, the locomotive, and the watch ; and I some- times think, looking at these machines and their performances, and seeing what they do, that they too ought to vote. More than that, during this time what has been the progress of the country in intelligence and the means of intelligence ? A hundred years ago, I had almost said, school-houses could be counted, certainly upon the hairs of your head, if not upon the fingers of your hand, in New England and throughout the country. As I remember them, they were miserable, unpainted buildings, that roasted you in winter and stank in summer, with slabs for seats, with old Webster for the spelling-book, with Daboll for the arithmetic, with three months of school in the winter, and with one, two or three in summer. Compare them with the high schools, the graded schools, and the primary schools, that are now the pride of every populous neighbor- hood. Has there been no augmentation in the instruments of intelligence. Then there were perhaps twenty newspapers in the United States. Alas ! how they have increased since then ! These are said to be the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations ; and often in this regard that comes to pass which comes to pass in sickness — that men who take the leaves are made sicker than they were before. But every man reads the newspaper to-day. The drayman, at his nooning, divides the time between his little tin kettle and his newspaper. A man, though he goes home tired, yet must know what is the news. The vast majority of labor- ing men — not to speak of professional men, and men whose business requires that they shall read — know before the setting of the sun, on any given day, what is being done in Asia, what is being done in Turkey, what is being done in California, what is being done the world round — for this is a pocket-world now, when every man can carry it round for himself, in his newspaper. Consider how cheap books are. Consider how wide is the dif- fusion of knowledge through essays, through treatises of va- ORATION — REV. HENRY WAUD BEECHER. 367 rious lands, through lectures, through all manner of instru- ments of enlightenment. Consider how our political organiza- tions are turning themselves into great educating conventions, in which the best men discourses on their theories of govern- ment. I hold that no German university ever had it in its halls such legists or judical men as were turned out by wholesale in this country during the late war, and for years preceding that war, for the discussion of questions relating to the rights of the indi- vidual, the nature of the State, the duty of the citizen, and the functions and prerogatives of the Legislature and the Govern- ment. Never were a people so educated as this people were dur- ing the twenty-five years which jxreceded the present. For, let me tell you, in 1776 there were twenty-nine public libraries in the United States ; or, there were about one and two-thirds vol- umes for each hundred of the people in the country. In 1876 there are 3,682 public libraries in the United States, not includ- ing the libraries of the common schools, of the Church, or the Sunday schools, numbering in the aggregate 12,276,000 volumes, or about thirty volumes to one hundred persons. Between 1775 and 1800 — a period of twenty-five years — there were twenty public libraries formed. During another period of twenty-five years — between 1800 and 18 25 — there were 179 public libraries formed. During the next period of twenty-five years — between 1825 aud 1850 — there were 551 public libraries formed. Dur- ing the twenty -five years intervening between 1850 and 1875, there were 2,240 public libraries formed. And in all the history of America there has not been a period when the brain of the rjopulation has teemed with such fertility as it did during the twenty-five years last past, in which the great and agitating dis- cussions of slavery took place. During the war, when there was such a subsoiling of this country, there was displayed such an energy and activity of its people as they had never before dis- played. Never before were there twenty-five years in which there were such tremendous agents employed for instruction ; never before were there such instruments of enlightenment brought to bear upon us. And that which is indicated in the increase of books is carried 308 OUR HATIONAL JUBILEE. out in the increase of newspapers and magazines, not only, but in the increase of machinery, and agriculture, and art, and the mechanical business of life. The impulse toward power and fruitfulness was never so eminent as it was during those twenty- five years in which the rights of men were the fundamental ques- tions that were discussed, and in which we proved the sincerity of the North and the weakness of the South. Thus far we have spoken of the condition of the common peo- ple and their various institutions. Let me say, in passing, one word on that subject which from my very profession it might be thought that I would mention first, and which on that very account I only glance at, lest I should seem to give undue promi- nence to that profession. The state of religious feeling in this country is more advanced to-day, by many and many degrees, than it has been in any period anterior to this. When the Ohio River, the mountain snow melting, swells up to the measure of its banks, and begins to overflow and over- flow, the big Miama bottoms are one sheeted field of water ; and where I once lived — in Lawrenceburg, Indiana — I could take a boat and go twenty-five miles straight across the coun- try, so vast was the volume. Now, suppose a man had taken a skiff and gone out over the fields and plumbed the depth and found only five feet of water, and had said, " Ah ! only five feet of water, and the Ohio had forty feet." Well the Ohio has not shrunk one inch. There are forty feet there and there are five feet everywhere else. Religion used to be mainly in the church, and men used to have to measure the church in order to know how deep the religion was ; but there has been rain on the mountains and the moral feeling that exists in the community and in the world has overflowed the bound of the church, and you . cannot measure the religious life or the religious impulse of this people, unless you measure their philanthopy, their household virtue, and the general good will that prevails be- ween classes and communities. The church is not less than it has been, it is more than it ever was, but outside of it also there is a vast volume of that which can be registered under no head so well as under that of religious influence, and which never existed in days gone by ORATION REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 3G9 to the extent to which it exists now. I am one who, although I am a servant of the church, a minister within her bounds, whenever I look out of her windows and see hundreds of good men outside, am not sorry. I thank God when I see a better man in a denomination that is not my own than I see in my own denomination. I thank God when I see virtue and true piety existing outside of the church, as well as when I see it existing inside of the church. I recognize the hand of God as being as bountiful, and I recognize his administration as being as broad as the rains or the sunshine. God does not send to Peekskill just as much sunshine as you want for your com and rye and wheat. It shines on stones and sticks and worms and bugs. It pours its light and heat down upon the mountains and rocks and everywhere. God rains not by the pint nor by the quart, but by the continent. Whether things need it or not, he needs to pour out his bounty, that he may relieve him- self of his infinite fullness. And so it is in the community. Never before was there so much conscience on so many subjects as there is to-day. I know there is not always enough conscience to go around. I know tnere are men whose consciences are infirm on cer- tain sides. I "know that in the various professions there are many places where there are gaps, or where the walls are too low. But the cultivation of the conscience is an art. Conscience is a thing that is learned. No man has much more conscience than he is trained to. So the minister has his conscience ; it is according to the training that he has had ; and it is thought to be fair for him to hunt a brother minister for heresy, though it would not be fair for him to hunt him for anything else. A lawyer has his conscience. It is sometimes very high, and sometimes very low. As an average, it is very good. The doctor has his conscience, and his patients have theirs. Everybody has his conscience, and everybody's consci- ence acts according to certain lines to which he has been drilled and trained. Right and wrong are to the great mass of men as letters and words. We learn how to spell ; and if a man spells wrong, and was taught in th;it way, nevertheless it is his way of spelling. And so it is with men's consciences. N < 370 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Now, I aver that mere lagislative conscience is genius. Not one man in a million has a sense of what is right end wrong ex- cept as the result of education and experience. No man in com- plex circumstances has a conception of justice and rectitude by a legislative conscience. The great mass of men — teachers and taught — are obliged to depend upon the revelations of experi- ence to enable them to determine what is right and wrong. They have to set their consciences by the rule of the experiences which they have gone through. I aver, not that the conscience of this people is a perfect con- science, and not that it does not need a great deal of education, but that, such as it is, it is better and higher and more universal than it was at any other period of the hundred years that have just gone by. I would rather trast the moral sentiment of the community now on any question of domestic policy, or on any question of legislative policy, than at any earlier period in the history of America. I would rather trust the moral judgment and common sense of the millions of the common people, within the bounds of their knowledge, than the special knowledge of any hundred of the best trained geniuses that there are in the land. This is not true in respect to those departments of knowledge which the common people have never reached. There is no common sense in astronomy, because there is no common knowl- edge in astronomy ; the same is also true of engineering ; but in that whole vast realm of questions which do come down to men's board and bosoms, the moral sentiment of the great mass of the common people is more reliable than the judgment of the few. In all those questions there is a common conscience and a common moral sense ; and I say that the average moral sense and conscience of the community never were so high as they are to-day ; and to-day they are at such a hight in the common people as to be safer in them than in any class in the community. This has been a gi-eat gain in the last hundred years. Let me once more call your attention to some of the elements of growth that have taken place in this nation. I was one of those whose courage never failed except in spots. Before the war I did have some dark days, in which I felt as though this ORATION REV. HENRY WARD BEECSER. 371 nation was going to be raised up merely to be the manure of some after nation, being plowed under. It seemed to me as though all the avenues of power were in the hands of despotism ; as though a great part of humanity was trodden under foot; as though every element that could secure to despotism a continu- ance of its power had been seized and sealed; and I did not see any way out — God forgive me ; but those very steps which made the power and despotism of Slavery daugerous were in the end its remedy and its destruction. This great North had long, partly from necessity and partly from a misguided and romantic patriotism, encouraged and pro- moted that which was the caries of free institutions, the bane of liberty, and the danger which threatened the continent in all after times. But when at last the nation was aroused, it smote not once, nor twice, but, according to the old prophet, seven times; and then deliverance was wrought. The power of a na- tion is to be judged by its resistance to disease. All nations are liable to attack; but the real power of a nation is shown in its ability to throw off disease — in its resiliency. The power of recovery is better than all soundness of national constitution. It is better than anything else can be. America has arisen from a fifth-rate power; but she looks calmly and modestly over the ocean, and is a first-rate power among the nations to-day. She was a democracy; the people made their own laws; they levied and collected their own taxes; and it was said, " Of course they will not allow themselves to be taxed more than they want to be." We were not a military people; Europe told us so. Great Britain told us so. They told me so to my face; and I said on many a platform, with an audience like this: "You do not understand what democratic liberty means. Wait till this game is played out, and see what the issue is." And what is the issue of the game ? To a certain extent, the political econ- omy of the South gave her aid in the beginning; and the po- litical economy of the North gave her inexhaustible resources. The genius of the northern people is slow to get on fire, and hard to put out; so that we had to learn the trade of war. We had learned every trade of peace already, and when once wg had learned the trade of war, the power of the North was manifest, 372 OUR NATIONAL JUBlLEfi. to the honor and glory of our religion, of our political faiths, and of the whole training of our past history. But there was ^something more dangerous than war. An insidious serpent is more dangerous than a roaring lion — if the lion does not jump before he roars. Repudiation threatened more damnation to the morals of this nation than ever war did with all its mischiefs; and I want to record, to the honor of our foreign population, of whom it is often said, " When you come to a great stress, when questions are to be settled on principles of rectitude and truth, they will be found wanting " — I want to record to the honor of the population that we have borrowed from Europe, the fact that when the question came, " Shall this nation pay every dollar which it promised, and by which it put the boys in blue into the field ?" it was through the West and the Northwest, the foreign vote together with the vote of our own people, that carried the day for honesty and for public integrity. Now t , for a democratic nation that owns everything — the gov- ernment, the law, the policy, the magistrate, the ruler ; that can change ; that can make and unmake ; that has in its hands al- most the power of the Highest to exalt one and to put down an- other 1 — for such a nation to stand before the world and show that this great people, swarming through our valleys and over our mountains and far away to either shore, and without the continuity necessary to the creation of a common public senti- ment, were willing to bear the brunt of a five years' war and to be severely taxed, down to this day, and yet refuse to lighten its burdens in a way that would be wrong and dishonorable — that will weigh more in Europe than any test that any nation is able to put forth, for its honor, its integrity, its strength, and its promise of future life. Look back, then, through the hundred years of our national history. They are to me like ascending stairs, some of which are broader, some narrower, some with higher rising, and some with less than others ; but on the whole there has been a steady ascent in intelligence, in conscience, in purity, in industry, in happiness, in the art of living well individually, and in the higher art of living well collectively, and we stand to-day higher ORATION — REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 373 than at any other time. Our burdens are flea-bites. We have some trouble about money. I never saw a time when the most of the population did not. We have our trouble because there is too much in some places and too little in others. The trouble with us is like the trouble in winter, when the snow has fallen and drifted, and leaves one-half of the road bare, while it is piled up in the other half, so that you cannot get along for the much nor for the little. But a distribution will speedily bring all things right — and I think we are not far from the time when that will take place. So soon as we touch the ground of univer- sal confidence, so soon as wo stand on a basis of silver and gold — then, and not an hour before then, will this nation begin to move on in the old prosperity of business. I determined not to say anything that could be construed as an allusion to party politics, and what I have said cannot be so construed ; for both sides around here say that they are for re- sumption. The only difference is, that one party say that they are for resumption, and the others say, that they are for re- sumption, as soon a* we can have it. Well, I do not- see how anybody can say anything more. You cannot resume before you can. Fellow-citizens, in looking back upon the past, it is not right that we should leave the sphere and field of our remarks with- out one glance at the future. In another hundred years not one of us will be here. Some other speaker, doubtless, will stand in my place. Other hearers will throng — though not with more courtesy, nor with more kindly patience than you have — to listen to his speech. Then on every eminence from New York to Albany there will be mansions and cottages, and garden will touch garden along the whole Eden of the Hudson River Valley. But it does not matter so much to us, who come and go, what takes place in the future, except so far as our in- fluence is concerned. When a hundred years hence the untelling sun, that saw Arnold, and Andre, and Washington, but will not tell us one word of history, shall shine on these enchanted hills and on this unchanging river — then it is for us to have set in motion, or to have given renewed impulse to those great causes, intellectual, moral, social, and political, which have rolled our prosperity to such a hight. 374 OCR NATIONAL JUBILEE. To every young man here that is beginning life let me say : Listen not to those insidious teachers who tell you that pat- riotism is a sham, and that all public men are corrupt or cor- rupters. Men in public or private life are corrupt here and there, but let me say to you, no corruption in government would be half so bad as to have the seeds of unbelief in public administration sown in the minds of the young. If you teach the young that their Chief Magistrates, their Cabinets and their representatives are of course corrupt, what will that be but to teach them to be themselves corrupt ? I stand here to bear witness and say that publicity may consist with virtue, and does. There are men that serve the public for the public, though they themselves thrive by it also. I would sow in your minds a romance of patriotism and love of country that shall be next to the love which you have for your own households ; and I would say to every mother that teaches her child to pray, Next to the petition, " Our Father which art in heaven," let it learn this aspiration : Our Fatherland ; and so let our children grow up to love God, to love man, and to love their country, and to be glad to serve their country as well as their God and their fellow men, though it may be necessary that they should lay down their lives to serve it. "- I honor the unknown ones that used to walk in Peekskill and who fell in battle. I honor, too, every armless man, every limping soldier, that through patriotism went to the battle-field and came back lame and crippled ; and bears manfully and heroically his deprivation. What though he find no occupation? What though he be forgotten ? He has in him the imperisha- ble sweetness of his thought : " I did it for my country's sake." For God's sake and for your country's sake, live and you shall 1 live forever. OUR NOBLE HERITAGE. A35T ORATION BY HON. GEORGE W. CURTIS, DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, NORTHFIELD, STATEN ISLAND, N. Y., JULY 4tH, 1875. Mr. President, Fellow-citizens, Neighbors, and Friends : — On the 19th of April, 1115, when Samuel Adams well called the father of the Revolution, heard the first sbots of the British upon Lexington Green, he knew that war had at last begun, and full of enthusiasm, of hope, of trust in America, he exclaim- ed with rapture, " Oh? what a glorious morning.'' And there is no fellow-citizen of ours, wherever he may be to-day — whether sailing the remotest seas or wandering among the highest Alps, however, far removed, however long seperated from his home, who, as his eyes open upon this glorious morning, does not re- peat with the same fervor the words of Samuel Adams, and thank God with all his heart, that he too is an American. In imagination he sees infinitely multiplied the very scene that we be- hold. From every roof and gable, from every door and window of all the myriads of happy American homes from the seaboard to the mountains, and from the mountains still onward to the sea, the splendor of this summer heaven is reflected in the starry beauty of the American flag. From every steeple and tower in crowded cities and towns, from the village belfry, and the school-house and meeting-house on solitary country roads, ring out the joyous peals. From countless thousands of reverend lips ascends the voice of prayer. Everywhere the inspiring words of the great Declaration that Ave have heard, the charter of our Independence, the scripture of our liberty, is read aloud in eager, in grateful ears. And above all, and under ah, pulsing through all the praise and prayer, from the frozen sea to the tropic gulf, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the great heart of a 376 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. great people beats in fullness of joy, beats with pious exultation> that here at last, upon our soil — here, by the wisdom of our fathers and the bravery of our brothers, is founded a Republic, vast, fraternal, peaceful, upon the divine corner- stone of liberty justice and equal rights. There have indeed been other republics, but they were foun- ded upon other principles. There are republics in Switzerland to-day a thousand years old. But Uri, ^chwyz and Unterwal- den are pure democracies not larger than the county in which we live, and wholly unlike our vast, national and representative republic. -Athens was a republic, but Marathon and Salamis, battles whose names are melodious in the history of liberty, were won by slaves. Rome was a republic, but slavery degraded it to an empire. Venice, Genoa, Florence, were republican cities, but they were tyrants over subject neighbors, and slaves of aris- tocrats at home. There were republics in Holland, honorable forever, because from them we received our common schools, the bulwark of American liberty, but they too were republics of classes, not of the people. It was reserved for our fathers to build a republic upon a declaration of the equal rights of men ; to make the Government as broad as humanity ; to found political insti- tutions upon faith in human nature. "The sacred rights of mankind," fervently exlaimed Alexander Hamilton, " are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records; they are written as with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity itself." That was the sublime faith in which this century began. The world stared and sneered — the difficulties and dangers were colossal. For more than eighty years that Declaration remained only a Declaration of faith. But, fellow-citizens, fortunate beyond all men, our eyes behold its increasing fulfillment .The sublime faith of the fathers is more and more the familiar fact of the children. And the proud flag which floats over America to-day, as it is the bond of indissoluble union, so it is the seal of ever enlarging equality, and ever surer justice. Could the men of that earlier day, could Samuel Adams and all his associates have lived through this amazing century to see this glorious morning, as they counted these teeming and expanding States, as they watched the ad- OBATION GEORGE W. CUUTIS. 377 vance of republican empire from the Alleghanies through a coun- try of golden plenty, passing the snowy Sierras and descending to the western sea of peace, as they saw the little spark of politi- cal liberty which they painfully struck, blown by the eager breath of a century into a flame which aspires to heaven and illuminates the earth, they would bow their reverend heads at this moment, as Adams and Jefferson bowed theirs fifty years ago to-day; and the happy burden of their hearts would trem- ble from their expiring lips, " Now, oh Lord, let thy servants de- part in peace, for their eyes have seen thy salvation." But we have learned, by sharp experience, that prosperity is girt with peril. In this hour of exultation we will not scorn the wise voices of warning and censure, the friendly and patriotic voices of the time. We will not forget that the vital condition of national greatness and prosperity is the moral character of the people. It is not vast territory, a temperate climate, ex- haustless mines, enormous wealth, amazing inventions, imperial enterprises, magnificent public works, a population miraculous- ly multiplied ; it is not busy shops and humming mills, and flaming forges, and commerce that girdles the globe with the glory of a flag, that makes a nation truly great. These are but opportunities. They are like the health and strength and talents of a man, which are not his character and manhood, but only the means of their development. The test of our national great- ness is the use we make of our opportunities. If they breed ex- travagance, wild riot and license — if they make fraud plausible and corruption easy — if they confuse private morality, and de- bauch the public conscience, beware, beware ! for aU our pros- perity is then but a Belshazzar's feast of splendor, and while we sit drunken with wine and crowned with flowers, the walls of our stately palace are flaming and crackling with the terrible words of our doom. But with all faults confessed, and concessions made, with all dangers acknowledged and difficulties measured, I think we may truly say that, upon the whole, we have used our opportunities well. The commanding political fact of the century that ends to-day, is the transcendent force and the recuperative power of republican institutions. Neither the siren of prosperity, nor the 378 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. red fury of civil war, has been able to destroy our Government or to weaken our faith in the principles upon which it is found- ed. We have been proud, and reckless, and defiant ; we have sinned, and have justly suffered, but I say, in your hearing, as, had I the voice, I would say in the hearing of the world to-day, that out of the fiery furnace of our afflictions, America emerges at this moment greater, better, truer, nobler, than ever in its history before. I do not forget how much is due to the political genius of the race from which we are so largely sprung. Nine-tenths of the revolutionary population of the country was of English stock. The Declaration of Independence was a fruit of Magna Charta, and Magna Charta grew from seed planted before his- tory in the German forest. Our friend, the historian of the island, in the interesting sketch of this town that he read us, tells us that Northfield was the most patriotic town in the county during the Revolution, and that the original settlers were, in great part, of German stock. The two facts naturally go to- gether. The instinct of individual liberty and independence is the germ of the political development of that race from which also our fathers sprung. They came from England to plant, as they believed, a purer England. Their new England was to be a true England. At last they took arms reluctantly to de- fend England against herself, to maintain the principles and traditions of English liberty. The farmers of Bunker Hill were the Barons of Runnymede in a later day, and the victory at Yorktown was not the seal of a revolution so much as the pledge of continuing English progress. This day dawns upon a common perception of that truth on both sides of the ocean. In no generous heart on either shore lingers any trace of jeal- ousy or hostility. It is a day of peace, of joy, of friendship. Here above my head, and in your presence, side by side with our own flag, hangs the tri-color of Prance, our earliest friend, and the famous cross of England, our ally in civilization. May our rivalry in all true progress be as inspiring as our kinship is close ! In the history of the century, I claim that we have done our share. In real service to humanity, in the diffusion of in- telligence, and the lightening of the burden of labor, in benefi- OEATION GEORGE W. CURTIS. 31 9 cent inventions — yes, in the education of the public conscience, and the growth of political morality, of which this very day sees the happy signs, I claim that the act of this day a hundred years ago is justified, and that we have done not less, as an In- dependent State, than our venerable mother England. Think what the country was that hundred years ago. To- day the State of which we are citizens contains a larger popu- lation than that of all the States of the Union when Washing- ton was President. Yet, New York is now but one of thirty- eight States, for to-day our youngest sister, Colorado, steps in- to the national family of the Union. The country of a century ago was our father's small estate. That of to-day is our noble heritage. Fidelity to the spirit and principles of our fathers will enable us to deliver it enlarged, beautified, ennobled, to our children of the new century Unw r avering faith in the ab- solute supremacy of the moral law ; the clear perception that well-considered, thoroughly-proved, and jealously-guarded in- stitutions, are the chief security of liberty ; and an unswerving loyalty to ideas, made the men of the Revolution, and secured American independence. The same faith and the same loyalty will preserve that independence and secure progressive liberty forever. And here and now, upon this sacred centennial altar, let us, at least, swear that we will try public and private men by precisely the same moral standard, and that no man who di- rectly or indirectly connives at corruption or coercion to acquire office or to retain it, or who prostitutes any opportunity or po- sition of public service to his own or another's advantage, shall have our countenance or our vote. The one thing that no man in this country is so poor that he cannot own is his vote ; and not only is he bound to use it hon- estly, but intelligently. Good government does not come of itself ; it is the result of the skillful co-operation of good and shrewd men. If they will not combine, bad men will ; and if they sleep, the devil will sow tares. And as we pledge our- selves to our father's fidelity, we may well believe that in this hushed hour of noon, their gracious spirits bend over us in benediction. In this sweet summer air, in the strong breath of the ocean that beats upon our southern shore ; in the cool 380 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. winds that blow over the Island from the northern hills ; in these young faces and the songs of liberty that murmur from their lips ; in the electric sympathy that binds all our hearts with each other, and with those of our brothers and sisters throughout the land, lifting our beloved country as a sacrifice to God, I see, I feel the presence of our fathers : the blithe he- roism of Warren, and the unsullied youth of Quincy : the fiery impulse of Otis and Patrick Henry : the serene wisdom of John Jay and the comprehensive grasp of Hamilton : the sturdy and invigorating force of John and of Samuel Adams— and at last, embracing them all, as our eyes at this moment behold cloud and hill, and roof and tree, and field and river, blent in one perfect picture, so combining and subordinating all the great powers of his great associates, I feel the glory of the pre- sence, I bend my head to the blessing of the ever-living, the immortal Washington. BENEDICTION BY REV. S. G. SMITH, DELIVEBED AT THE CLOSE OF THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, NORTH- FIELD, STATEN ISLAND, N. V., JULY 4tH, 1876. May the blessing of our father's God now rest upon us. As in time past, so in time to come, may He guard and defend our land. May He crown the coming years with peace and prosperity. May He ever clothe our rulers with righteousness, and give us a future characterized by purity of life and in- tegrity of purpose. May He everywhere shed forth the benign influence of His spirit, and to the present and coming genera- tions vouchsafe the inspiring hopes of His gospeL through Je- sus Christ, our Lord. Amen. THE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN RACE. AN ORATION" BY EX-GO V. HORATIO SEYMOUR. DELIVERED AT ROME, N. Y., JULY 4:TH, 1876. I do not come before you merely to take part in a holiday af- fair, nor to excite a passing interest about the occasion which calls us together. While my theme is the History of the Valley of the Mohawk, in speaking of it the end I have in view is as practical as if I came to talk to you about agriculture, mechan- ics, commerce or any other business topic. There is in history a power to lift a people up and make them great and prosperous. The story of a nation's achievements excites that patriotic pride which is a great element in vigor, boldness and heroism. He who studies with care the jurispru- dence of the Old Testament, will see that this feeling of rever- ence for forefathers and devotion to country is made the sub- ject of positive law in the command that men should honor their fathers and their mothers. But sacred poetry is filled with appeals to these sentiments, and the narratives of the Bible abound with proofs of the great truth, that the days of those who fear them shall be long in the land which God has given them. All history, ancient and modern, proves that national greatness springs in no small degree from pride in their his- tories, and from the patriotism cherished by their traditions and animated by their examples. This truth shines out in the annals of Greece and Rome. It gives vitality to the power of Britain, Prance, Germany and other European nations. The instincts of self-preservation led the American people in this centennial year to dwell upon the deeds of their fathers and by their example to excite our people to a purer patriotism, to an unselfish devotion to the public welfare. The power of history is not confined to civilized races. The traditions of savage tribes have excited them to acts of self- S82 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. sacrifice and heroism, and of bold warfare, which have extorted the admiration of the world. The Valley of the Mohawk gives striking proofs of this. The Iroquois, who lived upon the slopes of the hills which stretch from the Hudson to the shores of Lake Erie, called themselves by a name which asserted that they and their fathers were men excelling all other men. Ani- mated by this faith which grew out of their legends, they be- came the masters of the vast region stretching from the coast of the Atlantic to the banks of the Mississippi, from north of the great Lakes to the land of the Cherokees. Unaided by arts, without horses or chariots, or implements of war, save the rudest form of the spear and the arrow, they traversed the solidary forest pathways, and carried their con- quests over regions, which in extent have rarely been equaled by civilized nations with all the aids of fleets, or the terrible en- gines of destruction which science has given to disciplined ar- mies. History gives no other example of such great conquest over so many enemies or difficulties, as were won by the Iro- quois, when we take into account their limited numbers. Does any man think that all this would have been true if they had not been stirred up to a savage but noble heroism by the tradi- tions of their tribes ? The power of history over our minds and purposes is intensi- fied when we stand amid the scenes of great events. Men cross the ocean and encounter the fatigues, dangers of a journey to the other side of the earth, that they may walk through the streets of Jerusalem, or look out from the hill of Zion, or wan- der amid sacred places. These scenes bring to their minds the story of the past in a way that thrills their nerves. Or, if we visit the fields of great battles, the movements of armies, the thunder of artillery, the charge, the repulse, the carnage of war, the ground strewed with dead or dying and slippery with blood, are all presented to our imaginations in a way they can not elsewhere be felt or seen. If beyond the general inter( st of history which incites to na- tional patriotism, and in addition to the scenes of events which stir our blood when we move among them, we know that the actors were our fathers whose blood flows in our veins, we then ORATION EX-GOV. HORATIO SEYMOUR. 383 have acting npon us, in its most intense form, the power of the past. Patriotism, and love of the land in which we live ; a pious reverence for our fathers, all unite to lift us up upon the highest plane of public and of private virtue. The men and the women of the valley of the Mohawk meet here to-day not only to celebrate the great events of our coun- try, but to speak more particularly about deeds their ancestors have done on these plains and hillsides, and then to ask them- selves if they have been true to their country, to their fathers and themselves by preserving and making known to the dwel- lers in this valley and to the world at large its grand and varied history. Have they been made household words ? Have they shaped the ambitions and virtues of those growing up in the fireside circle ? Have they been used to animate all classes in the conduct of public and private affairs ? Just so far as the dwellers in the valley of the Mohawk have failed in these respects, they have cheated and wronged them- selves. They have failed to use the most potent influence to elevate their morals, intelligence and virtue. They have not brought themselves within the scope of that promise which re- ligion, reason and experience show, is held out to those who honor their fathers, and incite themselves to acts of patriotism and lives of public and private devotion, by keeping in their minds the conduct of the good and great who have gone before them. Let the events in this valley during the past three centuries now pass in review before us. Its Indian wars, the mission- aries' efforts, animated by religious zeal, which sought to carry religion into its unbroken forests and wild recesses ; the march of the armies of France and England, with their savage allies, which for a hundred years made this valley the scenes of war- fare and bloodshed ; the struggle of the revolution, which brought with it not only all the horrors ever attendant upon war, added to them the barbarities of the savage ferocity that knows no distinction of age, sex or condition, but with horrible impartiality inflicted upon all alik.l.ue tortures of the torch and tomahawk. "When these clouds had rolled away through the pathways of this valley, began the march of the peacefid ^84 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. armies of civilization which have filled the interior of our country with population, wealth and power. The world has never elsewhere seen a procession of events more varied, more dramatic, more grand in their influences. The grounds upon which we stand have been wet with the blood of men who perished in civilized and savage war. Its plains and forests have rung with the war cry of the Iroquois, and have echoed back the thunder of artillery. Its air has been filled with the smoke of burning homes, and lighted up by the flames of the products of industry, kindled by the torch of ene- mies. Let this scene impress your minds while I try to tell the story of the past. With regard to the savages who lived in this valley, I will repeat the statements which I made on a recent occasion, and the evidence which I then produced in regard to their character. We are inclined to-day to think meanly of the Indian race, and to charge that the dignity and heroism imputed to them was the work of the novelist rather than the proof of authentic history. A just conception of their character is necessary to enable us to understand the causes which shaped our civiliza- tion. But for the influence exerted by the early citizens of this place upon the Iroquois, it is doubtful if the English could have held their ground against the French west of the Alle- ghanies. In speaking of them the colonial historian Smith says: " These of all those innumerable tribes of savages which in- habit the northern part of Ameiica, are of more importance to us and the French, both on account of their vicinity and war- like disposition." In the correspondence of the French colonial officials with Louis the Great, it is said : " That no people in the world, perhaps, have higher notions than these Indians of military glory. All the surrounding na- tions have felt the effects of their prowess, and many not only become their tributaries, but are so subjugated to their power, that without their consent-^they dare not commence either peace or war." Colden, in his history, printed in London, in 1747, says : ORATION EX-GOV. HOKATIO SEVAIOUR. 385 The Five Nations think themselves by nature superior to the rest of mankind, and call themselves " Onguekonwe," that is, men surpassing all others. This opinion, which they take care to cultivate in their chil- dren, gives them that courage which has been so terrible to all nations of North America, and they have taken such care to im- press the same opinion of their people on all their neighbors, that they on all occasions yield the most submissive obedience to them. He adds ; I have been told by old men of New Eng- land, who remembered the time when the Mohawks made war on their Indians, that as soon as a single Mohawk was discovered in the country, these Indians raised a cry from hill to hill, A Mohawk ! a Mohawk ! upon which they all fled like sheep before wolves, without attempting to make the least resistance, what- ever odds were' on their side. All the nations round them have for many years entirely submitted to them, and pay a yearly tribute to them in wampum. We have many proofs of their skill in oratory and of the clearness and logic of their addresses. Even now, when their power is goue, and their pride broken down, they have many orators among them. I have heard in my offi- cial life speeches made by them, and I have also listened to many of the distinguished men of our own lineage. While the untutored man could not arm himself with all the facts and re- sources at the command of the educated, yet I can say that I have heard from the chiefs of the Five Nations as clear, strong and dignified addresses as any I have listened to in legislative halls or at the bar of our judicial tribunals. Oratory is too sub- tle in its nature to be described, or I could give to you some of the finest expressions in Indian addresses. They did not excel merely in arms and oratory, they were a political people. Monsieur D. La Protiere, a Frenchman and an enemy, says in his history of North America : " When we speak of the Five Nations in France, they are thought, by a common mistake, to be mere barbarians, always thirsting for blood, but their characters are very different. They are indeed the fiercest and most formidable people in North America, and at the same time are as politic and judicious as 386 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. well can be conceived, and this appears from their management of all affairs which they have not only with the French and English but likewise with almost all the Indians of this vast continent." As to their civil polity, Colden says in 1747: " Each of these nations is an absolute republic by itself, and every castle in each nation is governed in all public affairs by its own sachems or old men. The authority of these rulers is gained b} r and consists wholly in the opinion the rest of the nation have of their integrity and wisdom. Their great men, both sachems and captains, are generally poorer than the com- mon people, and they affect to give away and distribute all the presents or plunder they get in their treaties or in wars, so aa to leave nothing to themselves. There is not a man in the members of the Five Nations who has gained his office other- wise than by merit. There is not the least salary or any sort of profit annexed to any office to tempt the covetous or sordid, but on the contrary every unworthy action is unavoidably attended with the forfeiture of their commissions, for their authority is only the esteem of the people, and ceases the moment that esteem is lost." In the history of the world there is no other instance where such vast conquests were achieved with such limited numbers without superiority of arms. More than two hundred years ago, when the New England colonies were engaged in King Phillip's war, commissioners were sent to Albany to secure the friendship of the Mohawks. Again, in 1G84, Lord Howard, Governor of Virginia, met the sachems of the Onondagas and Cayugas in the Town Hall of Albany. These councils by the governors and agents of the colonies became almost annual affairs. The power of Colonel Peter Schuyler with the Iroquois at this day was deemed of the utmost importance by the crown. Perhaps no other man in our history exerted so great an in- fluence over the course of events which shaped the destinies of our country. For he was a great man who lived and acted at a time when it was uncertain if French or English civilization, thoughts and customs would govern this continent. He and the chiefs who went with him to England were received with marks of distinction and unusual honor by Queen Anne. ORATION EX-GOV. HORATIO SEYMOUR. 38? The Hollanders were the first Europeans who were brought in contact with this people. Before the Pilgrims had landed at Plymouth Rock, they had made a settlement on the Hudson, where the capital of our State now stands. At that time, the most commercial people of the world, their ships visited every sea, and they were accustomed to deal with all forms of civilized and savage life. In pursuit of the fur trade they pushed their way up the stream of the Mo- hawk, and by their wisdom and prudence made relationship with the Indians along its banks, which was of the utmost im- portance in the future history of our country. The influence which the Hollanders gained while they held the territories embraced in New York and New Jersey was ex- erted in behalf of the British Government, when the New Nether- lands, as they were then called, were transferred to that power. In the long contest, running through a century, known as the French war, the Dutch settlers rendered important service to the British crown. The avenues and rivers which they had dis- covered penetrating the deep forest which overspread the coun- try now became the routes by which the armies of France and England sought to seize and hold the strongholds of our land. The power which could hold Fort Stanwix, the present site of Rome, the carrying place between the Mohawk and the waters which flowed through Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence, would control the great interior plains of this continent. If France could have gained a foothold in this valley, the whole region drained by the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi reaching from the Alleganies to the Rocky Mountains, would have been her's. Our history, usages, government and laws would have been changed. He who will study European events for a hundred years be- fore our revolution will be struck as to the uncertainties, as to the result. For a century the destinies of this continent vibrat- ed with the uncertainties of the battle-fields of Europe. The cricis of our fate was during the reign of Louis the Great, when that ambitious and powerful monarch sought to extend his do- minion over two continents. When Marlborough won victories at Blenheim, Ramilies and Malblaquet, or when Prince Eugene 388 OtJB NATIONAL JUBILEE. swept the French from Italy and crippled the power of France, they did more than they dreamed of. They fought for the pur- pose of adjusting the balance of the nations of Europe ; they shaped the customs, laws and conditions of a continent. But the war was not confined to the Old World. Standing upon the spot where we now meet we could have seen a long successien of military expeditions made up of painted warriors, of disciplined soldiers, led by brave, adventurous men, pushing their way through deep forest paths or following, with their light vessels and frail canoes, the current of the Mohawk. But arms were not the only power relied upon to gain control. The missionaries of France, with a religious zeal which out- stripped the traders' greed for gold, or the soldiers' love for glory, traversed this continent far in advance of war or com- merce. Seeking rather than shunning martyrdom ; they were bold, untiring in their efforts to bring over the savage tribes to the religion to which they were devoted, and to the government to which they were attached. Many suffered tortures and martyrdom, in the interior of our State, and on the banks of the Mohawk. There are not in the world's history pages of more dramatic interest than those which tell of the efforts of diplomacy, the zeal of religion, or the heroism in arms of this great contest, waged so many years in the wilds of this country. If I could picture all the events that have happened here, they would invest this valley with unfading interest. Its hillsides, its plains, its streams are instinct with interest to the mind of him who knows the story of the past. It should be familiar in every household. But the grand procession of armies did not stop with the ex- tinction of Indian tribes, or of French claims. When the revolutionary contest began, the very structure of our country made the State of New York the centre of the struggle, and the valleys of the Hudson and the Mohawk, the great avenues through which war swept in its desolating course. It was most destructive here, for it brought all the horrors of Indian warfare. It is said that there was not one home in all this region which did not suffer from the torch or the tomahawk. Fortunately it was inhabited by a brave, hardy and enduring race, trained to meet and overcome the hardships of life. The ORATION EX-GOV. HOEATIO SEYMOUR. 380 homes of their fathers had been destroyed in Europe by the armies of France. The Germans brought here by the British Government during the reign of Queen Anne were placed between the English settlements and the savage tribes, because, among other reasons, it was said that their trials and sufferings had fitted them to cope with all the dangers of border life. When we have thus had passed in review before us the bands of painted savages, the missionary armed only with religious zeal, and shielded alone with the insignia of his sacred calling; the gallant armies of France and Britain ; the hasty array of our Revolutionary fathers as they rallied in defence of their liberties, we have then only seen the forerunners of the greatest move- ment of the human race. With our independence and the possession and the mastery of this great continent began a struggle unparalleled in the his- tory of the world. Peaceful in its form, it has dwarfed in comparison the mightiest movements of war. Its influence up- on the civilization of the people of the earth, has thrown into insignificance all that modern victories and invasions have done. During the past hundred years there has been a conflict between the nations of Europe on the one hand, and our broad land and political freedom on the other It has been a contest for men and women — for those who could give us labor skill and strength. We count our captives by millions. Not prisoners of war, but prisoners of peace. Not torn by force, but won by the blessings which the God of nature has enabled us to hold out to them in our fertile hills and valleys and plains. What were the hordes of the Persians? What were the array of the crusaders ? What the armies of earth's greatest conquerors, in comparison with the march of the multitudes of immigrants from the Atlantic, States or from Europe who have moved through the valleys of the Hudson and the Mohawk, the very gateways of our country seeking homes in tne interior of our continent ? Ours is a double victory, unlike war, which kills or enchains. It draws our op- ponents to our side, and makes them co-workers in building up our greatness and glory. As the men of every civilized race are pouring through our valley, we sse before us the mightiest ele- ments which are shaping the future of the human race. 390 OUlt NATIONAL JUBILEE. What are all the problems of European diplomacy compared with these movements passing before us? All their recent wars, in the changes they have made are insignificant in comparison with the power we have gained by immigration alone. That procession of events, beginning with Indian warfare, and stretch- ing through three centuries of battles for the possession, and the wars for the independence of our country, grows in import- ance and magnitude ; and we see no end to its column as we look down into the dim future. The courses of the Mohawk and Hudson will ever be its greatest avenues. For here com- merce pours its richest streams, and immigration leads its greatest armies. We are bewildered when we try to trace out the growth of the future. Each rolling year adds more than a million ; each passing day more than three thousand ; each fleeting hour more than one hundred to our numbers. The tide will swell still higher in the future. I was once asked by a. distinguished Englishman if we did not make a mistake when we severed our relationship from the British people? I told him that we were sometimes sorry that we let them go ; that our mere increase hi twenty-five years would exceed in numbers the population of Great Britain ; that the British Isles would make glorious States of our Union ; and that we needed them as outposts on the European shores. I was able to say this under the circumstances without violation of courtesy, and it was pleasantly received by a man whose mind was large enough not to take offense at the remark, which served to place the progress of our country in a strong light. I have thus hastily sketched the interest which attaches to the whole course of the Mohawk Valley, with the view of throw- ing light upon the question which I put at the outset. Have we who live amid these scenes been true to ourselves, and true to our forefathers, by making this history an animating influ- ence to promote the public welfare ; to instill honorable pride in family circles, or quicken the minds with generous thoughts, which otherwise would have been elull and cold and sordid ? The characters of men depend upon the current of thoughts which are passing through their minds. If these are ennobling, ORATION — KX-GOV. HORATIO SEYMOUR. 391 the man is constantly lifted up ; it matters not what his con- dition may be in other respects. If these are debasing, he will constantly sink in the scale of morals and intellect ; it matters not what wealth or learning he may have. What men think not only in the hours study, but at all times and places, in the field, in the workshop, in the counting-room, makes their characters, their intelligence and their virtue. Men's thoughts form and shape them. And those which relate to the past are most ennobling. For they are unstained by prejudice, and unweakened by sentiments which incline to detract from merits of living acbors. We in- stinctively think and speak well of the dead. This of itself makes us better men. We can so learn the histories of this valley, that its scenes shall recall them as clearly and as vividly as the pictures upon our walls. We can so stamp them upon our minds that its hills and plains and streams will be instinct with the actions of those who have gone before us that man has done himself a wrong who can look down upon the Mohawk ; and not see the drifting along its current the savage, the missionary, or the soldier of the past. He who dwells upon its traditions ; who can point out where men died in the struggles of war, where men suffered martyrdom for their faith— the spot where some bold stand was taken for the the rights of man and the liberties of country ; he who feels the full import of the great movements of commerce and of men passing through this valley, certainly has an education that will always lift him up mentally and morally. You can not imagine a people living here with all these events stamped upon their minds, ever present to give food for thought and reflection, who will not be animated by a zeal for the public welfare, by generous impulses, by a self-sacrificing devotion for honor, for religion, for country. There is no teaching so pow- erful as that which comes invested with the forms of nature. It is that which reaches and tells upon the young and the old, the learned and the unlearned alike. Imagine two men living in this valley, both familiar with all its features, one well informed and the other ignorant of its events ; then tell rae if you believe that they can be alike in their moral natures or their value as 302 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. citizens. In view of what I have thus said we can see why his- tory is so potent. We can now see the wisdom, and the mercy too, of that command which tells us to honor our fathers and our mothers, though for many years and through many gen- erations they have slept in their graves. There are some reasons why the history of New York is not as well-known to the American people as that of other States. It has not excited the interest which justly attaches to it. The first settlers were Hollanders. When the Dutch made their settle- ment on this continent they were superior to other European nations, in learning, in arts, in commerce, and in just views of civil and religious liberty. Our country is indebted to them for many of the best principles of our goverment. But their lan- guage is no longer spoken here. In-comers from other States and nations exceed then - descendants in numbers, and many of the traditions and events of its colonial period have been lost. This is true also of the German settlers in the valley of the Mo- hawk. The settlers who came into our State after the revolu- tion, brought with them the ideas and sentiments of the places from which they came, and which, for a long time, have been cherished with more zeal than has been shown for the history of the State, where they have made their homes. These things created an indifference to the honor of New York. So far from preserving what relates to its past, in many instances old monu- ments have been destroyed, and names obliterated, which, if they had been preserved, would have recalled to men's minis the most important incidents in the progress of our country. Nothing could have been more unfortunate than the acts which changed the name of Fort Stanwix to that of Eome, and that of Fort Schuyler to Utica. The old names would have suggested the circumstances of the French and Revolutionary wars. Of themselves they would have educated our people, and would have turned their attention to facts which they ought to know, but which have been thrown into the shade by terms which mis- lead. The existing designations, with their absurd and incon- gruous associations, divert the mind from these honorable memo- ries. The time has come when the people of New York owe it to ORATION EX-GOV. HORATIO SEYMOUR. 393 themselves and to their country to bring forward their records, to incite a just measure of State pride, and to elevate our standard of public and private virtue by the influence of our grand history. This should be taught in our schools, discussed, in our journals and made the subject of public lectures and addresses. Monu- ments should be put up to mark the spots where battles were fought and victories won, which have shaped the destinies of our country. When this is done, our own citizens, and the mul- titudes who traverse our valley, will see that within its limits all forms of warfare — that of Indian barbarism, disciplined armies, and of naval power have occurred within its boundaries. These prove the truth of the remark of General Scott, " that the con- fluence of the Mohawk and the Hudson has ever been the stra- tegic point in all the wars in which our country has been en- gaged with foreign powers." This work of making the details of our history known and felt by our people should begin in the heart of our State, in the valley of the Mohawk. Associations should be formed to pre- serve records and traditions that will otherwise be lost. Its old churches, which date back to the existence of our government, should be held sacred. The minor incidents of personal adven- ture, of individual heroism, should be preserved, for these show the character of the men and times in which they occur. In no other quarter were the rights of the people asserted against the crown more clearly, or at an earlier day. It is not certain if the blood shed in the Revolution commenced at the battle of Lexington, or when the sturdy Germans were beaten down and wounded while defending their liberty pole against Sir John Johnson and his party. I have refrained from want of time from presenting many facts and incidents which would give more interest to my address than the general statements I have made. Mr. Simms, to whom we are deeply indebted for long-continued and zealous researches into the history of this valley, has frequently given to the public sketches and narratives of great value. I trust the time has come when he and others who have labored in the same direc- tion, will receive the sympathy and applause to which they are entitled. 394 OUL. NATIONAL JUBILEE. Shall this centennial year be made the occasion for organiz- ing societies in this valley, with a view, among other things, to the erection of monuments at different points along the Mo- hawk ? I do not urge this as a mere matter of sentiment, but because I believe they will promote material welfare as well as mental activity and moral elevation. For these are ever found in close relationship. This whole region is marked for its ferti- lity. It abounds with the material for varied industry, and is filled with streams with abundant power to drive all forms of machinery. It is in the heart of a great State, close by the leading markets of our country, and with cheap transportation to those of the world. Many millions in search of homes and for places to pursue their varied industry have passed by all these. I believe if we had shown the same pride in our State that has been exhibited elsewhere; if the minds of our people had been quickened, and their patriotism kept bright and burn- ing by the examples of our fathers, that the Mohawk valley to- day would show a larger measure of power and prosperity than now blesses it. These things make a system of education, in some respects more active and pervaeling than that of books and schools. Subtle in their influences, they are not easily described, but they are felt and seen in all the aspects of society. Many years ago Congress made a grant to put up a monument over the grave of Herkimer. Attempts have been made to have the Legislature of our own State to mark in some suitable way the bat- tle field of Oriskany. At the last session of the Legislature, the senator from Otsego and other members of that body made ef- forts to have something done in these directions. For one, I am grateful to them for their patriotism and the interest they have shown in these subjects. They did their duty when we neglected ours. And yet I rejoice in their failure. This pious work should be done by the people of this valley. They should not wait for strangers to come in to honor their fathers. There woidd be little value in monuments put up by mere legislative action, and at the cost of the State or national treasury. We want on the part of the people the patriotism which prompts, the intelligence which directs, the liberality which constructs such memorials. We want the inspiring influence which springs ORATION EX-GOV. HORATIO SEYMOUR. 395 from the very efforts to honor the characters of those who have gone before us. We want that which will not only remind us of the glorious acts of the past, but which will incite them in the future. Will the descendants of the Hollanders in the county of Schenectady be indifferent to this subject ? Are the men of German descent, living in Montgomery and Herkimer, willing to have the services and sacrifices of their fathers pass into oblivion ? Does no hon- orable pride move them to let our countrymen know that their homes suffered beyond all others, through the Indian wars and revolutionary struggles ? Will they not try to keep ahve in the minds of their countrymen the fact that the battle of Oriskany, which was the first check given to the British power in the cam- paign of Burgoyne, was fought by then' ancestors and that its shouts and war-cries were uttered in the German language ? Have they less public spirit than the Germans who have lately come to our country, and who have put up a monument to Baron Steuben ? By doing so they honored one whose relation- ships to them were comparatively remote. Is it not true that men born in the vaUey of the Mohawk neglect the graves of their father s, and forget the battle fields which have been made wet with the blood of those of their own lineage ? The county of Oneida bears the name of one of the conquering tribes of the Iroquois. Upon the banks of the upper Mohawk, which flows through its territory, stood Fort Stanwix and Fort Schuyler. The former was for a hundred years during the wars between France and England, and at the time of our national independ- ence, one of the most important military positions in our country. Near by was fought the battle of Oriskany, which was a part of the contest at Saratoga which won our national independence. It was my purpose to give more value to this address, and to fortify its positions by presenting many incidents of a nature to interest and convince. But my health has not allowed me to refer to the proper books and documents for this purpose. I have therefore been compeUed to speak more in general terms than I intended. What I have said is also weakened by the fact that I have not been able to take up and follow out my subject continuously and with clearness. 396 OUR NATIONAL, JUBILEE. In particular, I wished to speak at some length of Fort Stan- wix, Fort Dayton and Fort Herkimer, but I am unable to do so. Much also could be said about the old church at German Flats. Built before the revolution, for the Germans of the Falatinates, it has associations with the great political and religious strug- gles of Europe and America. Standing upon the site of a fort stiU more ancient, for it was built at an early period of the French war, it was for a long time the outpost of the British power on this continent. It has been the scene of Indian warfare ; of sudden and secret attack by stealthy savages ; of sudden forays which swept away the crops and cattle of feeble settlements ; of assaults by the French ; of personal conflicts which mark con- tests on the outskirts of civilization. It was the stronghold of our fathers daring the revolution. The missionary and the fur trader more than three hundred years ago floated by its posi- tion in bark canoes, and in these later days millions of men and women from our own country and from foreign lands, on canals or railroads, have passed by on their way to build up great cities and States in the heart of our continent. There is no spot where the historian can place himself with more advantage when he wishes to review in his mind the progress of our country to greatness, than the Old Church at German Flats. Looking from this point his perspectives will be just ; all facts will take their due proportions ; local prejudices will not discolor his views, and he will be less liable here than elsewhere in falling into the common error of giving undue prominence to some events, while overlooking the full significance of others moro important. I hope the subjects of local histories will be taken up by our fellow citizens of this region, and the facts relating to them brought out and made familiar to us all. I said at the outset that I did not come here to-day merely to appeal to your imaginations, or only to take part in a holiday affair. I come to speak upon subjects which I deem of practical importance to my hearers. If I have succeeded in making my- self understood, I am sure, if you will look into these subjects* you will find that all history, all jurisprudence, all just reason- ings, force us to the conclusion that not only does a Divine com- mand, but that reason and justice call upon us to honor our ORATION — HORATIO SEYMOtJK. 307 ancestors, and that there is a great practical truth which con. cerns the welfare, the prosperity, and the power of all com- munities in the words, " Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God siveth thee." THE NATION'S JUBILEE. AN ORATION BY HON. THOMAS G. ALVORD. DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, SYRACUSE, N. T., JULY 4th 1876. People of the City of Syracuse and County of Onondaga. — We in common with every portion of our wide extended Union, have come together to recognize with suitable observance and commemoration the solemn act which one hundred years ago, gave form, shape and solidity to our government by declaring us a nation independent, self-reliant and free. In the performance of this duty we might relate the political history of the unwise legislation, the oppressive execution of ' tyrannical laws, the coercive power of irresponsible government which compelled our fathers first to passive, next to armed resistance, and finally culminated in a severance of our political dependence on the mother country, and gave to us that Declar- ation of Independence whose one hundreth anniversary we have met to honor. We might rehearse the names and virtues of the patriots of the revolution in the forum and in the field, the courage, endurance and trials of those who participated in that protracted and bloody controversy which ended in making our Declaration of Independence a perfect deed, indefeasible, guar- anteeing forever to those worthy to enjoy it, the rich inheri- tance of a free government. We might portray the battle fields of the past, brightening the dark gloom of defeat with the view of unflinching courage, indomitable endurance and an undying determination to struggle ever for success, and we might paint victory as it perched on the banner of our fathers with that halo of glory which time has not dimmed, neither will history forget the undying results of which, which in the final triumph (as we use them) may and we trust will endure for the benefit of all mankind, until the last trump shall summons the in- ORATION THOMAS G. ALVORD. 399 habitants of earth to another world, and this habitation of ours shall pass away forever. We might content ourselves with a plain and simple historical relation of all the events which clus- tered around, mingled with and made up the panorama of our revolutionary struggle, the intelligence of our people alive to all the minutiae of event, individuality and result of that memorable period, would lend a glow, kindle an ardor and inspire a joy palpable and demonstrative, making bare recital radiant, with all the fire of enthusiasm celebrating with mental and phy- sical rejoicings, the dry record alone. One of the marked features of this year is to be a full historical record of each town, city and county of the Union, embracing the geographical, municipal and personal history of each ; of course more prominently relating of its earlier history, its mark- ed and distinguished men and women — its pre-eminence or pro- minence in any direction of art, science, intellectual advantages or natural specialty ; all these locally preserved in appropriate depositories, are to be duplicated and gathered in one mass at the seat of the general government to be an ihuminated column upon which will be inscribed, " the one hundredth mile of our na- tion's progress in the race of peoples toward the ultimate goal of humanity.'' The duty of performing our portion of that work has also been imposed upon me, but with the consent and approbation of your Committee, I have deemed best to postpone to another period the historical recital contemplated, and you must be con- tent with my wearying you with an oration rather than history on the present occasion. I am impressed with the belief that it would be better to treat the subject before us very briefly, but also in a manner different from the common acceptation of the necessities of a Fourth day of July celebration. I would not have us to lack in all or any of the essential demonstrations of a joyful acknowledgment of its great significance, and a ringing acceptation of its glorious re- sults, but let us endeavor by a calm and conscientious considera- tion of our government and ourselves to learn more and bet- ter what there is for us to do, to preserve and keep alive all the benefits and advantages we have derived from the past, trana- 400 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. mitting those great blessing undiminished to our immediate suc- cessors, aye, not alone to them but also how best we may by pre- cept and example, pave the way to an indefinite prolongation and increased enjoyment, to the latest time of the legitimate re- sults of the solved problem of our national declaration. We are one hundred years old to-day ; true that the mental strife of contention against and antagonism to aggression com- menced earlier, true that organized and bloody opposition, ante- dated this day — April 19, 1775, and Lexington physically declar- ed as July 4th, 1776, politically decreed the independence and freedom of America. I repeat, we as a distinct people and nation are one hundred years old to-day, we have only to recollect for a moment to find however that while we are jubilant and rejoicing, that our eyes behold this day, yet in the light of the history of the nations of the world, our nation is an infant brought up in a school of our own, and setting forth to find our way among the nations of the earth in a new and untried pathway ; the peculiar and particular form of government which we enjoy, is in every essen- tial particular now on trial for the first time ; it is true, that theoretical republicanism, attempts at freedom have existed, but never in all human history has there been any other govern- ment so completely the government of the whole people such as ours. Kingdoms, principalities and powers enduring for centuries have risen, flourished and fallen into decay ; governments to-day powerful and great in territorial extent, in wealth and physical power, have their record of birth in the " Dark Ages '' — but we with a breadth of country surpassed by none — with a population in numbers exceeded by few, with an intellectual wealth as diffused and distributed among the masses enjoyed by no other people — with a physical power fearing no foe — we are but of yesterday. The vivid memories of many still active and alive to the work of the day, reach back almost to the very beginning of our Kepublic, and here and there on our soil, men and women yet linger whose infant eyes opened to life ere the dawn of our nation's morning ; we depend not as others on tradition, on the ORATION — THOMAS G. ALVORD. 401 lays of minstrels or the sayings of the wise men, to rescue from the shadowy and dim past, our country's history — it is but of a day, and the scenes in cabinet, council and camp, are as familiar to all as household words. Should we not then pause here and ask ourselves the signifi- cant question, why our fathers were successful in the establish- ment, and we so far fortunate in the present stability of the government of the people by the people, while a long list of futile attempts and terrible failures mark every spot wherever else the experiment has been tried ; we have to-day among the kingdoms of the earth so-called republics, but we know they are so only iu name — they lack the essential engredient of equality to all men before the law — their masses want an intelligent ap- preciation of th ar rights and duties — subject to popular frenzy or ambitious personal design, the republics of the past and (I am afraid) most of the present have no elements of either right, justice, or endurance. No ignorant, no indolent, no irreligious people can ever be permanently a free people, and I hold that the foundations of our nation were laid wide and deep, by intelligence, industry and religion, and upon the adherence to and practice of those great cardinal virtues by our people depend wholly the stability and perpetuity of our government. I do not wish to be understood when speaking of the intelli- gence, as meaning the mere learning of the school, nor that so far as such education is concerned, all should have the high- est attainable — what I mean is, a practical and thorough knowl- edge of all necessary to make man and women useful — not use- less — good citizens, understanding and practicing all the duties incumbent upon them for their own good and as parts of fami- lies, communities and States — above all else I would have every American citizen well grounded in a comprehensive knowledge of the theory, principles and by an honest, virtuous and contin- uous exercise of his knowledge and his duty as one of the gov- ernment as well as one of the governed, so help to form, mould and cast public opinion — for upon public opinion alone the stability and efficacy of our people, stolidity, strength and en- durance to our nation may be enjoyed and perpetuated. 402 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Indolence engenders vice, disease, poverty, death — labor pro- motes virtue, health, wealth and long life — what is true of the individual holds good applied to the nation — show me a lazy, indolent, shiftless race, and I will show a nation of slaves; if not so practically, yet mentally slaves to vice and strangers to virtue. Our fathers by hardy toil, by unwearied thought, calculation and invention, wrung from the wilderness the bright land you gaze on to-day — its great, almost miraculous advancement has been owing to the combined action of intelligence and physical labor, but that labor, whether of the body or the mind has been persistent and unceasing. The extent of our territory is greater by far than the whole continent of Europe, but our widely scattered population scarcely measures a tithe of its teeming multitudes; nature while piling up our chains of mountains towards the sky, scoop- ing out the habitations of our inland oceans, and scouring wide and deep throughout our land, our magnificent net-work of water highways, has planted everywhere for the use and enjoy ment of educated as well as directed industry in no scanty store, the natural mineral riches of every clime and people, every known vegetable production is either indegenous, or owing to the variety of climate and soil under our control, can Toe trans- planted and made to grow in sufficient abundance to feed the necessities and supply the luxuries of the world. In this land of ours, with such a present inheritance and future prospect we are not only blessed above all other people, but we have evidently been chosen by an overruling Providence to do the great and final work for man's elevation to and per- manent enjoyment of the highest civilization to which human nature can attain, and it behooves us to shape our action and direct our energies towards the earliest realization and not the retardation of the completion of this evident design. Independent of and radically separated from all other na- tions in our governmental policy, seeking no entangling alliance with powers, but opening wide our gates to all people who desire assimilation with us and enjoyment of our privileges, — I hold that we should be, a3 far as possible, — physically as well as politically, — independent of and separate from all other ORATION — THOMAS G. ALVORD. 403 people, until at least the common right of a common humanity to equality of privilege and position, is universally acknowl- edged and accorded. Would we keep our inheritance untarnished ? Would we add to its worth the wealth of experience and invention ? In thia land of ours, where labor ennobles, does not degrade, where the changes of worldly position depend upon individual action and are as variable as the waves of the restless sea — where the legitimate tendency of labor is to elevate and enlighten, and not to depress and keep down, let us and our children continue to labor to the end, that the blessings following its wise ap- plication will endure to the good of ourselves and our country. Glance for a moment at one of the results of our comparative poverty coupled with our intelligence and willingness to labor — in all countries but ours labor ignorant is impoverished and helpless with us labor educated is well paid and commanding. Other countries through the ignorance of labor are compara- tively non-inventive — we by the intelligence and independence of labor are incited to invention, and our record in the field of useful inventions is a prouder one than the annals of all other nations combined can show — it is the outgrowth of our inde- pendence of both political and physical need — cherish and fos- ter labor, for it is a precious jewel in the diadem of our people's sovereignty. The body perishes — the soul is immortal. In discussing my third proposition — the need of religion in a community for the maintenance of perpetuation of republican institutions, I must be understood as firmly and conscientiously believing that a morality founded upon the belief in a future and higher life of the soul, to be more or less moulded by and dependent upon virtuous action in the body, is a necessary ingredient in the fitness for and possibility of man's enjoyment of a free gov- ernment. I can not conceive what motive, beyond the sensuous enjoy- ment of the passing hour, Avith no thought for that higher and better life on earth, ennobling the individual and benefiting his kind, can ever inspire to virtuous deeds or heroic action the man or woman who believes death is an eternal sleep — the 404 OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. beauty and simplicity of our Constitution, which with proper re- gulations as to the rights of all, leaves to the conscience and judgment of each the matter of religious belief aud observance, is one of the grandest and most noble precepts of its text and character — but with no proscription in its requirements, with no sectarian bias in its action, public opinion has so far demanded and had in our legislative halls, in our State and National gatherings upon all great public occasions, the recognition of the need of the countenance and support of an overruling Pro- vidence — sad for us, for our children, for our beloved country, will that day be when that " altar to an unknown God," erected in pagan Athens, shall be overthrown in Christian America. More than two hundred years ago on the banks of our beau- tiful lake Onondaga, the first banner of civilization was unfurled to the breeze — it was the banner of the Cross, and I pray that so long as the stars and stripes of our country shall wave over us as a nation, the hearts of our people may cling to the emblems of an immortal life. I would not mar the pleasure or dampen the joy of this happy hour by any unkind allusion to the more immediate past, but it would seem proper while we are celebrating the birth, we should rejoice also over the preservation of our Union. Our recent in- ternecine strife was a legitimate result of a want of the practi- cal application of the written theory of our Declaration of Inde- pendence — in that instrument human rights were made as broad as humanity itself, and no clime, race, color or condition of men were excluded from the broad and sweeping declaration " All men are created equal." It was the practical departure from the annunciation of a political axiom which required our return to the allegiance due our creed, through the carnage and waste of civil war — that strife is over —the victory of principle over sel- fishness, though bloody, is Avon, and the nation rejoices through its wide extent at the solution is favor of freedom and right, but, like all wars, it has left wounds open, dangerous, unhealed — not, I trust the wounds of embittered and lasting hate between the contending masses, for God in his infinite mercy grant that this anniversary may bind Maine to Georgiaiink Virginia with Ca- lifornia, not alone with bands of iron, but with bonds of brotherly OBATION THOMAS G. ALVORD. 406 love and loyal submission to the rights of humanity individualized as well as compaeted,and that long before another hundred or even any years shall have passed in oblivion, shall be buried all recollec- tion of the struggle to maintain and preserve our Union, save the sweet and undying memory of brave deeds and heroic endurance, and the proud recollection, dear alike to sunny South and the warm-hearted North — our country is undivided and indivi- sible. But we are suffering the wounds always inflicted by ruthless war — a lower scale of both public and private morality — an irksome feeling at lawful constraint — a distaste for honest labor — a reckless extravagance in living — a want of recognition of moral responsibility, not alone in the administration of public affairs, but in the transactions of ordinary business life, and in social relations of neighbors and families. I warn you, my countrymen, that we must return to the primitive virtues of our fathers — education, labor, religion, must again take the places of greed, speculation, corruption, indolence and vice ? We may talk of the corruption of our chosen rulers — we may stand at the street corners, and publicly proclaim the venality and crime in high places ; this availeth not, what we must first do is — " Physician heal thyself," " Re- move the beam from thine own eye ere you cast out the mote from your brother." "Purify the fountain that the stream may be pure." Under the theory and practice our system of gov- ernment, when administered with the spirit and intent of its founders, our rulers are the people's servants, and if the people are indifferent and corrupt, so likewise will be their rulers — if the constituency is active and honest, the government will reflect it. A desire by the voter to profit pecuniarly and socially by the prostitution of political principles to personal ends ; the indis- criminate trade by all classes in the enactments of municipality, State and nation, engendered by base cupidity either pecuniary or personal — above and beyond all the utter neglect by the enlightened, educated and wealthy of their sacred miner as well as higher political duties — all combine not only to make our politics disreputable — but to demoralize and will finally destroy 406 OUIi NATIONAL JUBILEE. our government unless we speedily return more nearly to the simple habits, rigid morality, and conscientious respect to all political duty which characterized our fathers. I have thus very briefly discussed our position and our duty on this our hundredth anniversary — I have not considered it wise or profitable to rehearse the familiar story of our struggle for and success in the achievement of a national existence. I have not in studied words p anted the rapid strides in our progress as a people. You know it all, and memory would not be quickened nor patriotism intensified by any recital of mine. But I deem it appropriate, before I shall have concluded the discharge of the duty imposed upon me, to address more par- ticularly the people of my city and my native county. On the 4th of July, 1776, our county was the abode of the hostile savages, an unbroken wilderness, within whose borders no white man had found a home — it remained so until four years after our revolutionary struggle, when the first white set- tler, Ephraim Webster, sojourned with the Indian, and follow- ing in his path others slowly settled within our present bor- ders — while true that no hostile army has ever invaded our soil — no hearths desolated — no roof-tree obliterated — no historic battle-field marked or distinguished our territorial lim- its; yet still it is sacred ground. As early as 1792, a grateful State, reserving a small portion of the land adjoining and surrounding our celebrated salt springs, dedicated and allotted the remainder to the surviving soldiers of its contingent in the armies of the Revolution ; many of those war-worn veterans with their surviving house- holds found in long, wearisome and dangerous journey their way highther and entered upon the lands alike the recognition of and leeward for their services, and the records of not a few of the towns of our county, show to-day among their worthiest citizens, the honored names of their descendants. " Beating their swords into plough shares — their spears into pruning hooks," they attacked with the same unyielding cour- age, determination and endurance of labor, toil and privation, which had marked their struggle for liberty, the native rug- OKATION THOMAS G. ALVORD. 407 gedness of our uubrokeu soil — the lonely cabin of logs their dwelling — the biased but tangled wood path their highway, they battled with forest-crowned hill and wooden glen, until peaceful pasture and yielding grain-field displaced the lair of the wild beast and the hunting grounds of the wilder savage. We cannot now linger to detail the progress of each passing year, to name the conspicuous actor in each scene, but we can for a moment contrast the extremes of 1776 and 187(3, look at the pictures before us — 1776 the wigwam of the savage and his trackless path in tho unbroken forest — 1876, six score thousand human souls basking in the sunshine of a free civilization en- joying all the social, intellectual and political advantages ever yet allotted to humanity. Compared with the huts of our fathers— our habitations are palaces — they dot every hill top, they nestle in every valley — they stand in the seried ranks in our beautiful and growing city, and cluster together around the school and the church, in aU our smihng and thriving villages — our thrifty husbandmen look upon countless herds of lowing cattle — on seas of waving grain — on graneries bursting with the rich and bounteous yield of their fertile acres; our merchants in their stately marts of com- merce gather from the ends of the earth, the produce of every soil — the handiwork of savage and civilized — all creations of nature and art to satisfy the wants or gratify the tastes of our people — the unceasing hum of the manufacturers' wheel, the continuous blow of the sturdy artisan and stalwart laborer chase solitude from all our borders — our water highwaj^s link us with the ocean lakes of our own West, and give us peaceful en- trance to that great sea which rolls between us and the land of our father's fathers— highways of iron rib our country North, West, South, and East — broad avenues run by the door of the hum- blest, and commerce with its white wings of peace, has blotted out forever the warpath of the savage and the tree-marked way of the hardy pioneer. Religion dwells in more than an hundred tem- ples of beauty dedicated to the seiwice of the living God. Edu- cation from the lordly towers of the princely university to the more humble school-house at the cross roads, boasts its many habitations. We are the central county of the Empire State, 408 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. which ranks first in wealth, first in population, first in represen- tation among her sister States of our Union. Of sixty, our county is seventh in population and wealth, and in the fifth rank in State representation. The pioneers of our country and their sons have been dis- tinguished on every stage of life in all the years of our history — side by side with them, many who have here sought a new home, a new country, have over and again reflected honor and glory on the home of their adoption. Distinction in the pulpit at the bar, in the forum, on battle field, in the broad field of human endeavor — wherever honor, distinction, wealth and place were to be gained — high rank, deserved places of merit and worth have been won by many whose earliest training for use- fulness and busy life, was by the fireside of their homes among the beautiful hills and smiling valleys of our beloved Onondaga. I cannot speak to-day of battle scenes or individuals, but we know that on many a well stricken field, in many a still and si- lent city of the dead, he to-day the mortal remains of hundreds of Onondaga's bravest sons, who battling for the right, from Bull Run to Appomattox, left their record of bravery and patriot- ism in all the conflicts of the late struggle for national existence. We rejoice in the life and presence to-day of the brave survivors of that terrible conflict. From the Generals with title won on the field, to the private soldier whose unflinching valor and great endurance fought and won the contest for our second in- dependence — all have reflected honor upon and won undying glory for the country of their nativity and adoption. Children of the soil— adopted sons and daughters of old On- ondaga — is this noble heritage of our fathers, this free and equal government given us to enjoy by the brave, good and wise men of an hundred years ago worth preserving another hundred years ? No human being I now address will witness the scene at that celebration ; the voice of him who now addresses you will be silent in the grave, the beating hearts and active limbs of this vast multitude will have gone to their last quiet mor- tal sleep forever. The men of the revolution gave us and our children this day at the cost of suffering and tears, wounds and death. Where are they ? The lasc surviving warrior and ORATION THOMAS G. ALVORD. 409 statesman who stood on the battlements of freedom's citadel and conquered for us the banded hordes of tyranny and op- pression, has gone to join the hosts of heaven's freemen in another and a better world. Can we not take their finished work — keep and preserve it untarnished, unbroken, beautiful enlarged, and more glorious and endearing, for our children's children '? Though dead in the body yet living in the spirit, we may then hear, mingling with the rejoicings of 1976, and blessings and praise to our names as well as to the deeds of our fathers, in that we have made of the talent committed to our charge other talents of honor, glory and prosperity for our country. Let us to this end from this day practice economy, industry . — cultivate intelligence, make virtue the rule and guide of our private and public life. Triumphant armies inscribe their banners with the names of their victorious fields of battle. May we give as our legacy to the next great anniversary of our country's birth, the stars of our nation's banner undimmed — its stripes untarnished, right- fully inscribing thereon as our faith kept pure and unsullied — our motto, won by our acts — Religion, Education, Free Labor, the only sure foundation on which to build, for perpetuity, Republican Institutions. OUR SUCOESS-OUR FUTURE. AN OKATION BY EEV. JOHN P. GULLIVEE, D.D., DELIVEBED AT BINGHAMPTON, N. Y., JULY 4, 1876. We celebrate to-day one hundred years cf Democratic Gov- ernment. We natter ourselves, not without some show of reason, that our experiment has been, on the whole, a successful one. It is true that in other days " the name of commonwealth has past and gone," over many 'fractions of this groaning globe." It is true that our Republic has only attained the slight vener- ableness of a single century. It is true that other democracies, far more ancient have at last " deigned to own a sceptre and endure a purple robe.'' Still we live, and we console ourselves with the thought that our one century has been equal in actual development to many centuries of Venice or Rome. It is true we have had our enemies, foreign and domestic, and we may have them again. But in two wars, one of them of vast proportions, we have not only gained victory, but increased strength, while in the war of 1812, we certainly lost nothing. We have now convinced the world, what our best friends in Europe have seriously doubted, that a democracy is capable of being converted, in a day, into a military despotism, as effective for all warlike purposes, as the citizen-soldiery of Germany or the soldier- tenantry of Russia. A government, however loose it may seem to the eye of a monarchist, which out of a nation of civilians, can summon more than a million of men into the field at one time, which can create a navy at call, and iu so doing, can revolutionize the whole system of maritime and defensive warfare, which can originate amidst the confusion of a struggle for national existence, such improvements in firearms as to make obsolete the arsenals of the civilized world, and, in four years can terminate in complete success, a struggle whose dimensions parallel the Napoleonic wars of Europe — a democracy capable ORATION — REV. JOHN P. GULLIVER. 411 of such a military metamorphosis, is at least not to he despised as an unwieldy and ungovernable mob. It is true that our own body politic has not been at any time in a state of perfect health. As a democracy, it has hud its dis- eases, some hereditary and chronic and some the result of tem- porary indiscretions and excesses. We began our republican organization with a large infusion of the ideas of class-aristo- cracy from the Northern Colonies, with all the institutions and social usages of a race aristocracy at the South, and with the crude, wild doctrines of French Red Republicanism strangely mingled with both. Our histo\ - y during the century has been almost exclusively the record of the throes of the Republic un- der the antagonism of these morbid agents. The extraordinary force of vitality which our democracy has developed in elimi- nating these internal tendencies to disease and dissolution, is not the least among the occasions of our solemn exultation to- day. Our remedies have, some of them, been constitutional and gentle ; others of them, heroic and painful. But they cer- tainly Lave been efficacious. We have diseases still. But just at this moment they are of the prurient, disgusting sort, morti- fying and annoying enough, but only skin deep. Surely a nation that found means to eradicate the slow con- sumption of social aristocracy, to quell the fiery fever of a brigand communism, and to cut out the cancer of slavery, will contrive some method of exterminating the insect parasites that are now burrowiug over our whole civil service. If the heart of the Republic is sound, we need not greatly fear for its cuticle. Only, fellow-citizens, let us be prompt in our treatment, for the disease is contagious, and it is very irritating ! Besides the ills we have or have had, there maybe latent tend- encies to disease and decay, that we know not of. But we will borrow no trouble to-day. We will hope that the same con- stitutional vigor, and the same skill of treatment which have served us so well in the past, will, by God's blessing, prove suf- ficient for our future needs. Only let us draw largely upon the sources of national nourishment — let us keep in vigorous exer- cise all our organic functions ; let us become a manly nation, instinct in every part with the highest attributes of national 412 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. life ; then we may defy the inroads of disease ; then the whole body, fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, shall grow into a perfect state — a state which ' God shall honor and man shall fear. We rejoice in the health I of the Nation on its htmdreth birthday! It is also true, to change our figure, that there has been not a little occasion for anxiety concerning the frame-work of our Ship of State. The model of a ship and the adjustment of its various parts to each other, the balance between its breadth of beam and its length of spars, the ratio to be observed between steadiness and crankness, the precise point where the " clump " may blend into the " clipper," is a great nautical problem. The blending of all our local sovereignties, from the school district and the town meeting, through the counties and the states, into one national sovereignty, while yet each retains its distinct and characterestic autonomy, I have often compared, in my own mind, to that admirable and exquisitely beautiful adjustment, which, before the prosaic age of steam, gave us the many- wing- ed buds of the ocean — the swift eagles of commerce — skimming every sea, and nestling in every harbor. You have seen them, with their pyramid of sails, rising with geometrical exactness from main to royal, swelling in rounding lines from the fore- most jib to the outmost point of the studding-sail boom, and re- treating again, pear-shaped, to the stern, each holding to its full capacity the forceful breeze, all drawing in harmony, and yet each hanging by its own spar, and each under the instant con- trol of the master on the deck. Behold, I have said, the Ship of a Republican State ! What absolute independence of parts ! What perfect harmony of all ! What defined distinction of function! What complete unity of action! What an unre- stricted individual freedom ! What a steady contribution of all to the general result ! and as the graceful hull, courteously bend- ing in response to the multifarious impulse, has ploughed proud- ly through the waters, the exclamation has risen to my lips, " Liberty and Union ; now and forever ; one and inseparable!" But the actual existence of this exact balance between the National and local Governments, was not always as well estab- lished as it is to-day. At the very outset the Southern States, ORATION — I; I V. -JOHN f. GULLIVER. 413 from the four that the National Government would forbid a pro- tective tariff, denied the supremacy of the National ever the State Government, except during the consent of the latter. In the later days of Calhoun, by one of the strangest trans- mutations ever known in politics, the same doctrine was main- tained,by the same States,for the purpose of resisting a protective tariff. Throttled by the strong hand of Andrew Jackson, at that time, the monster drew back into his den, only to appear under the feeble administration of Buchanan as the champion of slavery. The doctrine that the National Government may be left at any moment, a floating hulk without canvas, rigging or rudder, the statesmanship which would launch a nation into the great ocean of human affairs, under the command of some two score of in- dependent local governments, may now be laid away in our cabinets of moral monstrosities, as a fossil of the past. De Tocqueville, the philosopher of Democracy, prophesied forty years ago, in this wise : " It a] ipears to me unquestionable, that if any portion of the Union seriously desired to separate itself from the other States, they would not be able, nor indeed would they attempt to prevent it, and that the present Union will last only as long as the States which compose it choose to remain members of the confederation." That this sagacious and most friendly writer on American institutions has in this case proved to be a false prophet, is not the least among our many causes for congratulation to-day. A century of rapid movement and of revolution ; a century which has changed the political condition of nearly every nation on the face of the earth ; a century during which wj have twice met the whole power of the British Empire in arms, and once sustained the shock of assault from the combined power of slavery at home and in Europe ; a century during which we have eliminated from the body politic the most insiduous and dangerous diseases ; a century during which we have deter- mined questions concerning the relations and functions of our concentric cluster of independent democracies of the most rad- ical and vital nature ; a century during which our population has grown from three millions to fifty millions, our erea of ter- ritory extended from one million to four millions of square miles, 414 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. our manufactures advanced from twenty millions to forty-two hundred millions, our agriculture, mining and commerce in- creased in a ratio which sets all figures at defiance ; a century which has raised us from insignificance, to a position as the fifth of the great empires of the world ; a century which in educa- tional and religious progress has more than kept pace with our material advancement, giving us a proportion of church mem- bers to the whole population four times greater than it was at the close of the Revolution, and a much larger increase in the ratio of liberally educated and well educated persons ; such a century we celebrate to-day. Who shall say that we do not well to rejoice. Who can fail to exclaim with devout and fervent gratification, What hath God wrought ? But we should make an unworthy use of this great occasion what Does The should we corifine ourselves to a mere childish Future Promise? exultation over accomplished facts. A great future is extending out before us. What does this experiment prove, and how much does it promise ? It is a time for study and thought. This centennial year, with its accomplished past just rolling out of view, with its present exciting and absorbing duty in the election of a chief magistrate, with an immediate future promising an unexampled reaction of prosperity, should be a year in which men should make great progress in the science of society and government. We must not fail therefore to note and to admit freely, that our experiment has been in some respects an indecisive one. It does not prove that a Democratic form of government is neces- sarily and everywhere the best form. We are isolated from all the leading powers of the world by the intervention of great oceans. We entered upon an unoccupied continent. We encountered, in the beginniug, no enemies except a few cowardly savages. The rivalries of mankind, and their strifes have been adjusted upon other fields. While Russia, our comrade and contemporary in national growth, has been advancing upon the line of effete human civilizations, we have assailed only the forces of the wilderness. She has fought wiih men, we with nature. She has conquered by the sword ; we by the plough-share. She has flourished by diplomacy ; we by enterprise. She is a con- ORATION — REV. JOHN P. GULLIVER. 415 solidated military despotism ; we an extended Democratic Re- public. Yet a philosophical statemanship has often declared that we are approaching the same goal of empire and power. The comparison is full of interest and challenges our closest scrutiny. Russia, primarily the soldier, never out of uniform, her villages but military camps, her cities vast garrisons, her railroads and chauss^s only lines of army communication, is yet an inventing, manufacturing, agricultural and emphatically a commercial nation. America, primarily a land of peace and thrift, has been transformed in a day, into one vast battle field, and its rustic as well as its civic population have left the shop and furrow at night to appear in the morning assembled in armies of Titanic size, armed with the weapons of the Titans, while the thunder of their encounter has shaken the astonished world. Russia has exaulted autocracy and punished democracy as a crime against God and man. America has proclaimed universal liberty and held the despot to be the enemy of the human race. Yet within the shell of imperial absolution, Russia hnlds to-day, as its inheritance from the depths of a Slavic an- tiquity, a communal organization which is almost a fac simile of a New England township ; while America, beneath its out- ward freedom of thought, speech and act, covers a force of pub- lic opinion, both national cind local, which few men have the courage to defy, and still fewer the strength to resist. Under these curiously opposite conditions is the problem of the State being wrought out, for the Golden Age which is to come. From these diametrically opposite stand points, are the two most youthful nations of mankind advancing to the pos- session of the Earth. Such a comparison between two opposite civilizations serves to The Democratic idea show us that democracy, as a form of govern- and the Democra- ment may or may not contain the elements of tic ideal. freedom and the assurance of stability. In other words, the democratic idea, as men have conceived it and em- bodied it in governments, may or may not accord with the de- mocratic ideal as it is enunciated in the royal law of Christ, and as it will one day be seen, embodied in the governments of men. Democracies may hide within themselves the seeds of despotism. 41G OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Autocracies moy nourish the germs of liberty. A democracy, ■which is administered in the interests of individuals, or of a par- ty, or one in which the majority deprive the minoritv of freedom of speech and act, through the action of law or the terrorism of public opinion, is essentially despotic. There is despotism enough exercised within the Republic to-day, which if it had occurred in a monarchy would have cost a king his throne, and perhaps his life. On the other hand absolationism may be so administered that the highest good of every subject shall be sought, and all his rights secured, according to the law. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and thy neighbor as thy- self." There is then a political democracy, and there is a moral de- mocracy. The slow and reluctant translation of the abstract ideal into the actual idea, and its expression in governmental institutions, is of surpassing interest and importance. It is this history which concerns us on this centennial anni- Tbe Question of versary. The inquiries which are being discussed the Day. to-day from ten thousand rostrums, and which are pressing upon the thoughts of millions of men are these and such as these. What is democracy, as distinct alike from the mob and the despot ? What is liberty, as limited by law, and contrasted with li- cense ? What progress had been made up to the fourth of July, 1716, in translating this ideal democracy into the thoughts and insti- tutions of men ? What did the assembly over which John Hancock presided, on that memorable morning, achieve for this great thought of the ages? How has this imperial gem, inherited from our fathers — the Koh-i-noor of our political treasures — been cared for by us ? Our first answer to these questionings is a radical and sweep- ing answer. We assert that this perfect ideal of liberty, this basal principle of a Democratic State, this Minerva embodying all temporal good for man, sprang full armed and perfect from Christianity. ORATION — REV. JOHN P. GULLIVER. 417 " In the iniage of God made He man, male and female cre- ated He them," was the first announcement of this seed princi- ple of political and social happiness. While the rights and needs of the sexes vary, as do those of all individual men and of all classes of men, the image of God gives a grandeur of dig- nity and consequence to every human being, be his descent, or rank, or abilities what they may. "While the king inscribes upon the seal of his authority, " By the grace of God, a mon- arch over men," while the magistrate, the parent, the master, the wife, the husband, and child, may each claim a special divine statute as the basis of his rights ; the man, as a man, wears the very signet of Jehovah. Like the incarnate Son, he has " on his vesture and on his thigh " a name written : A King among kings is he, a Lord among lords. The inference is direct and clear. A man despised, is God blasphemed. A man enslaved, is the glory of God changed into a thing of wood, or stone, or into a beast, or creeping thing. A man wronged, is God insulted. To hold a man in ignorance, is the criino of not retaining God in the knowledge. " Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, my brethren, ye did it not to me," is the malediction, written by an invisible hand upon all the banners of war, and over the blood- rei skies of every battle-field of history. This is the answer to the question, " Whence comes wars and fightings among you ?" The Nemesis of the nations has been no other than the loving Father of all, avenging his outraged children who have cried day and night unto him. "I tell you that he will avenge them speedily" is the interpretation given by the Son of God himself to the dispensations of war, and agonies, and, blood, which has been to wondering philanthropists only a mys- tery of iniquity, from the first murder to the last battle. To the ideal humanity, to the mm stamped with the divine image, God declares, " The nation and the kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish; yea it shall be utterly wasted;" and in that word is the whole philosophy of the civil state. The state that God perpetuates and blesses is not the state that merely wor- ships God, but it is the state that also honors the image of God in man. Devotion without humanity may be found in every 418 our national jubilee. idol temple and Mohammedan mosque on earth. But devotion without humanity never exalted a nation or saved a single human being. The hell of perished, nations, like the hell of lost souls, is crowded with the peoples who have cried. " Lord, Lord," who have even prophesied in his name, and reared their temples like the trees of the forest, and sent up their ori- sons like the sons of the forest birds ; but because a man was ahungered and. they gave him no land, because a man thirsted, and they gave him no springs of water, because man was a stranger and they made him a slave, because a man was naked and they kept back his wages by fraud, because a man was sick and. they left him, as the North American savage leaves his worn out father, to perish by the roadside, because a man was in prison and they visited him only to add scorn to his sorrow, for these things, and such as these, the sentence has gone out against the nations — among them, some of the grandest and greatest, " Depart from me, ye cursed !" What then is a true Democracy? It is the Government a True Demo- which honors man as man. It is the Govern- cracy. ment which protects all his God-given rights — the right to do right, as God may teach him, the right to do good, as God may give him opportunity, the right to be good, as God may give him grace, and the right to be happy, as God may bestow the means of happiness. It is a Government which avenges all his wrongs — the wrong oft attempted of forcing him into sin ; the wrong of forbidding him to do good in the name of Christ ; the wrong of leading him, in self-defence, into all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor ; the wrong of robbing him of his Heavenly Father's gifts and excluding him from the Heavenly Father's home. It is the Government which provides for the development of all his faculties, winch educates him, not merely so that he may be a money maker, a wages earner, but to be as much of a man as God-like a man as he is able and willing to become. It is the Government which recognizes and honors all his capacities for happiness in every feasable way, making this earth beautiful for him, filling his cup with innocent pleasures, uncon- taminated by vileness and sin. ORATION — KEV. JOHN P. GULLIVEIl. 4 10 It is the Government which writes on all its banners, which en- graves on its seal of State, which re-enacts in the legislative hall and administers in the court of justice, the great law of human weal. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." And " Liberty," what is that ? It is full encouragement, both by negative permission and positive aid, to do that which is God-like, and it is equally the utmost possible restraint upon whatever is degrading and evil. Any other liberty is the liberty given to a child to burn itself in the fire. It is the license which is the worst form of cruelty and slavery. This is the work of God in history. Toward such a God's plan in democracy has all the discipline of the race been history. tending. De Tocqueville says, " The development of equality of condi- tions, is a providential fact, and it possesses all the characteris- tics of a Divine decree. My book (Democracy in America) he adds, has been written under the impression of a kind of religi- ous dread, in contemplation of so irresistible a revolution. To attempt to check democracy would be to resist the will of God.'' Steadily, though often slowly, has the race been led on to this grand consummation. This is the meeting of war, and con- quest and revolution. The progress of democracy has in it the might of omnipotence. The gravitation of matter which directs rivers in their courses, is a feeble agent, compared with the grav- itation of love, which directs all the streams of human society toward the great ocean of universal order and pmity and joy. The history of the gradual introduction of this conception of government into men's ininds and of its consolidation into ac- tual institutions must be followed by the careful student in the quiet of private investigation. Suffice it here to say that the first governments of which we have any knowledge, were constructed for protection and re- straint. They took a defensive attitude against evil rather than a positive position in the promotion of good. This defensive and aggressive idea has followed government in the family and in the State, and very largely in the church down to our day. Its gradual elimination and the substitution of the Christian 420 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. thought, that evil should be prevented rather than punished, that men need to be encouraged to be good, rather than be re- strained from becoming bad, has proved to be one of the most difficult lessons which the race has had to learn. We know little of society before the flood. It was probably, Primitive however, a grand experiment of the power of mere Governments, law and authority in conflict with evil. The chief impression which survived the deluge seems to have been that the wickedness of man was great on earth. The history of lib- erty through these decades of centuries which followed seems to be the record of a series of struggles to relax the unjust and cruel rigor with which this system of resistance to evil was pur- sued. In these struggles the subject was in a state of chronic rebellion against the sovereign, the plebeian against the patri- cian. Each dynasty and each class, as it gained power, used it for itself. Little by little humanity asserted its rights. The in- troduction of the Mosaic code was an immense advance which we now fail fully to appreciate. Its democratic features were in fact the chief study of the founders of this Republic in pohtical science. The institutions under which we are now living were slowly The American elaborated, in the devout study of the word of Kepubiic. God, long before the separation from the mother country occurred. The Church of Christ, as founded by the Apostles, was strongly democratic, and the whole spirit of its administration tended powerfully to a revolution in civil gov- ernment. Its doctrines all went to exalt the responsibility and dignity of the individual soul. Their religion gradually under- mined, in the case of our fathers, their preconceived ideas of social order and civil government. When the new cirumstancas of their colonial condition compelled them to act on new lines. They found their convictions antagonism with their prejudices. It is said that the compact of the Mayflower seemed almost the result of an accident. The ideas of the colonists were strongly aristocratic and inclined them to put the whole power into the hands of a few. But the men of muscle saw that now they were of as much consequence as the men of brains and of cul- ture and gentle birth. They firmly put in their claims and OEATION REV. JOHN P. GULLIVER. 421 the leaders, considering the demand, saw that it was just. "Yet the spirit of the infant colonies was strongly aristocratic. In manners this was seen much more plainly than in laws. The story of the punctilous etiquette which was observed in the court (as it was called) of Washington, the seating of the New England congregations according to social rank, and numerous quaint and almost ludicrous customs of the same sort show sufficiently the spirit of the age. But all this was a matter chiefly of taste and decorum. Deep in their hearts these men loved their fellowmen. For humanity and for God, they were ready at any moment to lay down their lives. Their churches were the real morn of the State. These were formed upon the strictest model of the pattern given in the New Testament. They were local democracies of which the motto was " One is your master, and all ye are brethren." Even churches formed upon the pattern of European usage, caught the same spirit, and became fountains of a real, if not of a nominal democracy. It was this tendency to a sort of aristocracy, which was the conservative element in the formation of the government. This made us a constitutional Republic instead of a Greek or Polish Democracy. This was the Federalism of the early days, in which the Puritan of New England found himself in hearty sympathy with the Episcopalian of Virginia, and the Presby- terian of New York. This whole party was violently assuulted by the men, whose conception of democracy was that of a gov- ernment in which every man should have equal authority, in- stead of one in which every man should be equally protected and cared for. The Republican party (as the ultra Democrats of that day termed themselves,) were bent simply on power for the masses. The Federalists were enlisted, with all their heart and soul, in the effort to secure order, justice, virtue and hap- piness for the masses. The contest was intense and bitter beyond any party strife Republican and of which we have any recent experience. The Federalists Republicans saw in the Federalists a reproduction of their oppressors in Europe. The Federalists saw in their opponents, the devils incarnate, who had just then closed the 422 OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. reign of terror in France. Both were wrong, so wrong that only this tremendous antagonism could have restrained either from making a wreck, of the new ship of state. The result was, that a substantial triumph was with the Federalists, who really created the Constitution, while the seeming victory was with the Republicans, who after the administrations of Wash- ington and Adams gained undisputed possession of the Gov- ernment. Thenceforward it became an offense akin to treason to question the perfection of the Constitution, while it was little short of a personal insult for a politician to charge his opponent with having been a Federalist. It was the fashion fifty years ago to speak of this Constitu- tion as almost a miracle of human wisdom. Of late there seems to be a disposition to regard it a very common place affair. The estimate of fifty years ago is much more nearly correct. It was a miracle not only of human wisdom, but of Divine teach- ing. It was the frujt of centuries of the teaching and training of mankind. It was the product of no one mind or class of minds. It was the result of Providential circumstances quite as much as of human thought. It was the work of many cen- turies and of many men. It was the work of God as well as of men. It was the practical embodiment of the great law of love, in the civil state. It was by far the best translation the world had ever seen, or has seen as yet, the great ideal of democracy — the Utopia of Christianity — into actual institutions and prac- ticable government. The next great advance of democracy in this country is seen in the overthrow of the institution of slavery. If I pass by this whole history with a mere mention here, you will understand that it is because of the familiarity of the subject to the men of our day, and not because it was not a most extraordinary, a most in- structive, a most important victory for the rights, both of mas- ter and slave, and for the weal and progress of mankind. Now we stand on the mount of vision. The past extends back, reaching into the farthest depths of history, studded more and more thickly as we approach our modern era, with the monuments of victory for justice, law and freedom. It is a magnificent and an inspiring spectacle. It is well that we celebrate OKATION — REV. JOHN P. GULLIVER. 423 this anniversary of freedom, as John Adams predicted we should do, " with thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires and illumi- nations." But we should be unworthy sons of heroic sires, if we did not The Present look about us, in the surroundings of the present, and Dnty inquire if there is not something to be done, as well as something to be enjoyed. Men and brethern, I do but follow the example of the men of a hundred years ago, when I bid you pause in the midst of your rejoicings to-day ; when I ask you to consider whether an in- stant and a deadly peril be not concealed, like a worm in the rose, beneath the fair blossoming of this hour; when I ask you if it is not certain that, unless there be radical, sweeping, uncom- promising reform in the administration of our Government, if it is not certain that we are celebrating the first and the last cen- tennial of the American democracy. Such, fellow-citizens, is my profound conviction, and out of the abundance of my heart I speak to you to-day. The time was, in the days of Washington and the elder Adams, and the same continued to be substantially true to the close of the administration of the younger Adams, that an officer of the Government, employed in its administration, who should actively engage in its construction, through the elections, would have been regarded as guilty of an impropriety — a misdemeanor, a dishonorable unworthy act, similar to that judge in our day who should appear as an advocate or a client in a court over which he presides. Even at so late a date as the impeachment and trial of Andrew Johnson, it was charged as a crime that he had given civil appointments for the purpose of strengthening his own political position. We look back to the otherwise creditable administration of Andrew Jackson, and find the first open and acknowledged de- parture from this principle. Adams had refused a re-election on terms which he regarded subsersive of the government. Jackson seems to have yielded with reluctance to a demand which the rapacity of many of his supporters forced upon him with a fury which marked a complete revolution in public feel- ing. To the horror of all right minded men of all parties, Mr. 424 OUU NATIONAL JUBILEE. Marcy, of New York, on the occasion of the nomination of Martin Van Buren as minister to England, declared in his place in the Senate, the revolutionary doctrine, " We practice as we preach. To the victors belong the spoils" The horror of the opposing party and of all good citizens, gradually changed to acquies- cence, and on all sides the principle was accepted as a practical necessity. The heroic struggle with slavery, which lifted the nation to a moral elevation, of the grandest sublimity for the moment, checked this downfall in the lowest slums of knavery and pec- ulation. But with the close of the war came a temptation and an opportunity such as never had been dreamed of, and with them -an entire absence both of moral principle and of legal re- straint to meet the evil. How we stand to-day, how humiliated before our own con- sciences and before mankind, I need not pain you by describing. You know it all, and you feel it deeply. Now what is to be done ? What have I to do, and what have you to do ? The two great parties have so far recognized the evil and the danger, that they have both nominated men who are representa- tives of honesty and reform. But neither of them has laid down any principles of reform. It is not their place to do it. Parties can represent and give voice to the principles of the people. But they cannot create them. It is for the pulpit, the press, the school, the private citizen, to solve the problem, and to hand over its execution to the politicians. What, then, is the solution of this perplexing problem? I hesitate not for an answer. Go back to the ancient traditions of the Kepublic ! Make it a disgrace, and as far as possible a legal misdemeanor, for any officer engaged in administering the Government to interfere with an election. Forbid the legisla- tive and judicial departments to have any voice whatever in the appointment of an officer of the Executive Department, except in a few cases of confirmation by the Senate, acting in its ex- ecutive capacity. Make it a high crime and misdemeanor for any executive ORATION REV. JOHN V. GULLIVER. 425 officer to remove a subordinate, except for cause. Let a man's jmlitics Lave nothing to do with the giving or retaining of of- fice. Make it a State's prison offense for a legislator to engage in any legislation in which his own interests are directly or in- directly concerned. The time is propitious for such a reform. The people are ripe for it. All the indications are that within ten years they will have it. For this let us all labor, Republicans and Demo- crats alike. We are just entering on a Presidential canvass, under candidates against whom not a word of reproach can be breathed. Let us thank God for so much to-day. It is likely to be a respectable canvass, in which foul-mouthed abuse will be little used. Let this Centennial year be distinguished for a victory over the most dangerous, but most contemptible foe that ever men- aced the Republic. Let the watchword of the next three months be — Honesty! Truth! Patriotism! Down with party machines and machinists ! Up with the reign of purity, honor and integrity ! Thus shall the victory of this one hundredth year be worthy of the companionship of the victories, of the birthday of the Republic. Thus shall the men of this generation stand proudly by the side of the men of 1776 and the men of 1865. Thus shall the Republic, established by the wisdom and sac- rifices of the one, and saved by the heroism and blood of the other, be handed down to our children, to be incorporated with the great empire of liberty and love, which is at last to fill the whole earth. THE SPIRIT OF 1876. AN ORATION BY HON. GEO. W. CLINTON. delivered at the centennial celebration at buffalo, n. y., jult 4th, 1876. Fellow-Citizens : — This holy day itself is full of soul-stirring memories and replete with joy. It carries us back to the second day of July, 1776, when the Congress of the thirteen colonies de- bated and adopted the Declaration of Independence, and to the Fourth day of July, when, in firm reliance upon its truth and justice, and upon the favor of Almighty God, they signed and gave it to the world. The debate has not come down to us, but we know that it was vehement, and that some good, brave men, shrank from what seemed to them sure self-destruction. "We do not wonder that they shrank, but we reverently thank God that their timid counsels were overborne by the eloquence and firmness of the illustrious signers of that immortal Declara- tion — an eloquence and firmness that were not all their own, but were heightened, if not imparted, by the indignation of a peo- ple who loved liberty more than lands or life, and detested the sovereign of Great Britain as the author of all their wrongs. I have no time for eulogy. The heroes and the statesman of the Bevolution have no need of it. The world yet rings with their praises ; their names and deeds are embalmed in history, and imperishable fame is theirs. Indeed, if I had time for eulo- gy I would rather expend all my poor powers in just praise of the people of the thirteen colonies — "the common people" — the men and women of all occupations, who, inflamed by a sense of injury to themselves and of danger to the liberties of their descendants, gave birth and force to the Declaration of Inde- pendence, and through suffering and blood maintained it, and so, under God, were the true authors of all the blessings we enjoy. I do believe that in that great emergency the so-called leaders were truly representatives — that they were actuated by ORATTON — GEORGE W. CLINTON. 427 the people— that then, as now, the people, instead of being led> were the leaders and inaugurated the glorious revolution. Theirs was the chiefest heroism. The orator, inspired by pop- ular sentiment, exclaims, " Give me liberty or give me death/ and he receives the laurel due to heroism, but the people go forth silently and act it in suffering, in battle and in death. My heart, I must confess, is rather with the unrecorded than the recorded worth and virtue. No warrior ever won fame in bat- tle unless supported or urged on by heroic masses. In our land there are, I doubt not, thousands, yea, tens of thousands of humble or forgotten graves which if mortal ashes be fit sub- jects of honor, are as worthy of distinction as are those which we have covered with marble and with granite. It was, in my poor understanding, the wisdom and heroism of the people, ra- ther than those whom we call the fathers of our country that made the great war of the Revolution successful and sub- lime. That war was on principle. A people jealous of their liberties felt that taxation without representation was tyranny. They looked upon their children, and they thought : " If we submit, they will be governed by our dastardly example and bow under a heavier yoke ; the colonies will become dependencies and our children vassals of the British crown," and so they took their arms at Lexington and plunged into what seemed a hopeless conflict with great Britain. They had no ally — no assurance of foreign aid. But far more was involved in the issue of that con- flict than they supposed. They did not, they could not realize that they were warring and suffering for the whole human family. What wisdom could, in 177G, jjierce the utter darkness of the coming century and see our country as it is ? Only God could do it, and He, in His gracious providence gave our fathers the victory, and guarded and guided the nation to which victory gave birth. Give Him the glory ! In celebrating this happy day, it would be shameful to forget that ultimate success was won, with the aid of many gallant friends of freedom from Europe, where Liberty was dead, but not the love of her. The name of many of these worthies are irrecoverably lost. Holland gave us Steuben, who was so ser- 428 OUR NATIONAL JDDILEE. vicable in the training of our troops. Alsace contributed the good De Kalb, who fell, a martyr to liberty, at Camden. Poland gave us Kosciusko and Pulaski. " Warsaw's last champion " was our champion too. He it was who planned the camp on Bemis's Heights, and made our lines impenetrable, and so contributed, far more than the skill of Gates and the mad bravery of Arnold, to the victory of Saratoga and the surrender of Burgoyne. Pulaski did good service, raised an independent corps and laid down his life for the good cause in the assault upon Savannah. Scotland gave us Paul Jones, the hero of our flag and terror and the scourge of England on the sea. Thomas Paine, an Englishman, gave us wondrous aid and comfort with his pen, and the value of his services was publicly acknowledged by Congress and by all our foremost statesmen, and after the vindication of our Inde- pendence, New Jersey and New York hastened to testify their sense of them by gifts of land and money. It seems surprising that a man of his ability and worth was not a Christian. He, in common with many of our most venerated statesmen, was tinged with the falsely so-called philosophy then so widely prevalent. His "Age of Reason'' is almost forgotten. His assaults upon Christianity were weak and ineffective. Mere justice to so efficient a defender of the rights of man requires us to remember that his creed, though too contracted, was noble — it might have been the creed of Socrates or Plato : " I believe in one God and no more, and I hope for happiness be- yond this life. I believe in the equality of man ; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy." France among a host of gallant men, gave us Lafayette. Words can- not add lustre to his fame, or exalt him in the hearts of my countrymen. As Americans we cannot hold D'Estaing and Rochambeau in especial honor. The French Government had no love for us and no regard for liberty. France became our ally because she hated Great Britain and wished to wound her. These were the commanders of her navy and her army, through whose co- operation Washington was enabled to close the war by the en- OKATION — GEOKGE W. CLINTON. 429 forced surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. But it is well to remember that, as the stars in their course fought against Sisera, so a Providential storm prevented Cornwallis's escape and made our victo^ certain and complete. Great Britain ac- knowledged our independence, and our narrow country was left at peace with all the world. The first Constitution of New York was adopted at Kingston in 1777, on the 20th day of April, and it seems to me that a proper State pride requires that day to be set apart by the good people of the State as a holiday for- ever. The Articles of Confederation were submitted to the States in 1777, and, being ratified by the Legislatures were signed by their representatives in Congress in 1778. These articles were a mere rope of sand, and did not create a nation. It was a blessed day for us and for the world when they were replaced by the Constitution. That went into effect on the 4th day of March, 1788, when Washington duly entered upon the office of President. It was the most perfecc Constitution that man ever devised. But alas, it presented one dark blot upon its other- wise fair face — it did not fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence and recognize the equality of man. The framers of it were compelled to compromise with slavery. But that Constitution was a great advance in the direction of lib- erty, and gave strength and majesty to this before formless and disjointed country, which was born into the world on the fourth day of July, 1776. From the happy hour of its adoption, through many trials, the United States of America has marched gradually onward in the paths of glory. Her acquisitions of territory have been immense. In 1803, our Government purchased of France, for $15,000,000, Louisiana and all her claims to the country west of the Mississippi. Thus we acquired not only perfect property in the whole length of that great river, but the very heart of the continent, and even passed the Kocky Mountains and planted our banner upon the coast of the Pacific Ocean. In 1819, Spain ceded Florida to us, thus rounding our possessions on the Gulf. After a long interval, Texas was annexed, war with Mexico followed, and New Mexico and California were added to our country. 430 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. I am proud of the laurels won by my country in her wars ; but, thank Heaven she has far worthier claims upon our admira- tion and respect. I care not to inquire whether her independ- ence was confirmed and her dignity vindicated by the war of 1812. It is enough to say, that, despite some disaster her triumphs upon both land and sea were worthy of our intrepid people, and of all those victories I can recall none that was more glorious and complete than that which Perry won upon the lovely lake that laves the feet at Buffalo. Would, my friends ! that I could, with justice to this occasion, permit the recent past to be buried in oblivion, and omit all reference to the Rebellion — that awful war, the memory of which renews my anguish and recalls my fear of something worse than death — the ruin of my country. My voice was one of the first that demanded war in preference to disunion, though I well knew what tremendous evils must come from war how- ever thoroughly successful. "War came, and there was great bitterness in being compelled by sacred duty to counsel battle to the death for the Union and for liberty, while I was debarred from sharing the dangers and privations of our soldiers. The South, under the influence of slavery, was a mere aristocracy — a noble aristocracy, if you please ; but base is the noblest. The North and West, with an ineradicable hatred of slavery, had been induced to accede to the demands of the South and extend its area. One is ashamed to note the ease with which public men were swayed by promises and threats of sophistry. This cancer, hated as it was by all, or nearly all, the framers of the constitution was placed under the protection of the constitution and permitted to spread. The slave holding States became arrogant. The gods made them mad. Cotton was king. They resolved to repudiate the constitution, to recede and form a nation, a Republic, by themselves. No wonder that the politicians of the South hated the constitution that had so long protected them and despised the freemen of the North, who were proud to live by their own labor. They could not read the Declaration of Independence without a denial of the truths for the maintenance of which their fathers and our fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. " We hold 0KAT10N — GEOKGE W. CLINTON. 431 these truths to be self-evident — that all men' are created equal ; that they are endowed by then" creator with certain inalienable rights : that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights governments are insti- tuted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Athens, Sparta, all the so-called free States of Greece, and the Roman Republic itself were all debased, cor- rupted and ruined by slavery. To make liberty stand firm, erect and fair upon the bleeding back of slavery is not possible. And yet these men, in imitation of the miserable Spartans, pro- posed to have their Helots and worship freedom. In their madness they would have compassed our ruin and their own, and blighted every germ of liberty in Europe. We resisted for our lives : we fought for them and for their children as well as for ourselves and for our children. Thank God ! we beat them down, and kept them from self-niurder. We retrieved our national honor. We purified the constitu- tion and made it the guaranty of freedom and equality through- out our glorious country. Our warfare was in a holy cause, and so far as our deep wrongs would permit, was waged without enmity. When peace returned, I was among the first to say, to a portion of the public, that our duty and the common interest demanded that we should take ample security for the future and grant full amnesty to all who had participated in the rebellion. I spoke in a corner. I was not heard. I hardly expected to be heard or heeded, but I satisfied my conscience. We suffer at the south as well as here and everywhere the evil consequences of the war of the rebellion. We have an immense debt and a depreciated currency ; but our chiefest suffering has flowed from the demoralization which always dogs the heels of war. Truly, we have paid a tremendous price for victory, but the victory was worth it a million times. In the history of the last century, is it not very clear that God has been most gracious to us ? He gave us honorable success in all our wars. He made the passions and the wants of trans- atlantic powers conduce to the extension of our country. He gives us nearly the whole of North America to hold in trust for Freedom and for Virtue and as an asylum for the oppressed of the world. 432 OUE NATIONAL JUBILEE. When the expansion of our territory threatened to weaken the ties of our nationality, new modes and means of intercourse by sea and land — steamboats, canals, railroads, ocean steamers, and the magnetic telegraph — arose in good time to counter- poise the disadvantages of distance and avert the danger. In point of time New York is much nearer now to San Francisco* than it was to New Orleans less than half a century ago. Free institutions — the same in substance — prevail throughout our land. Free commerce throughout the immense expanse cements our union, and free intercourse and an equal love of liberty mould us into one peculiar people. There is not and never has, been in all the world a prouder title than " citizen of the United States." If there be any portion of our country for whose future I fear it is the South, it is said, I hope untruly, that there disorder to some extent prevails, and that politicians still talk of " the lost cause," and seek to rise upon the dying passions of the past. But I will not fear. The most loyal men of the South are the brave confederates who fought so gallantly against us. The re- constructed States must take care of themselves and their own interests and honor. If they will destroy themselves, so it must be. But surely their wise, good men will counsel their people, as ours do us, to submit to the inevitable, and to seek prosperity, and happiness, and honor, where alone they are to be found — in the firm maintenance of impartial law and the pursuits of industiy. What wonderful changes in the condition of the world the past century has witnessed ! How petty are the evils we com- plain of when compared with those under which the whole earth groaned a century ago ! When the Declaration of Inde- pendence was promulgated, Holland and Switzerland were the only Republics in the world, and whether toleration was correct- ly understood and practiced in them is not clear. Elsewhere, throughout Europe, Africa, Asia and ah the islands of the great deep, bigotry reigned, and the many were subservient to the few. The people were divided into orders, ranks and castes, and the lowest were trodden under foot. Persecution for opin- ion's sake was everywhere indulged, and, in general it was ORATION — GEORGE W. CLINTON. 433 cruel, fierce and bloody. Rulers and ruled were alike selfish and inhuman. England, from whose law and his- tory our ancestors drew their love of freedom, while boasting of Liberty, oppressed Ireland and filled her colonies with slaves. There was not in the whole world a country so pure, enlightened, tolerant and happy as was each and every one of the thirteen colonies who jeoparded everything for perfect freedom and the rights of man, and gave birth to our country. "What glories cluster around the country's history ! How firm and strong she is — how pure and lovely — the example of the world, its glory and its hope ! Surely our God looks down upon it with appro- bation and will bless it. We may well believe that by it He will encourage humanity and make the round earth happy, tolerant and free. Everywhere there has been progress in the arts, in science, in government, in everything that elevates the intellect, improves the heart and favors freedom. In our land intolerance has no existence, and in almost every other country she seems languish- ing or dead. Good men of all Christian sects have learned to love each other, and to forget their differences in the unity of their good works and worship. Childhood is more and more dear, women is more elevated and influential, and her refining influence is more widely felt. The rights of inferior beings are more justly estimated, and the brutes, whether they labor for us or not, and the birds that help and cheer us are under the pro- tection of the law. The elective franchise now rests upon mere manhood, and not upon the accidents of property. The weapons and the implements of war are now so destructive and so costly, that invasion seems impossible, and wars, when they come, must certainly be brief. This Centennial year has been marked by many happy events. Let me refer to a few of them. The people everywhere have evinced a hatred of private and political corruption. It has witnessed the detection — may it witness the condign punish- ment — of men who have made the public a prey, and the temple of liberty a den of thieves. Everywhere in our land great en- terprises have been commenced or brought to a successful end. In our own dear Buffalo, we may point with just pride to our 434 bUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. noble City and County Hall, and to the numerous new buildings which add beauty to our city, and prove its prosperity and pow- er. This year, too, is made famous, by the wonderful Interna- tional exhibition at Philadelphia. There, all the nations exhibit and compare their natural, industrial, artistic and scientific pro- ducts, and learn to know and respect each other, and to appre- ciate the inestimable blessings of peace and untrammeled inter- course. How, my friends, shall we confirm our blessings and manifest our gratitude to Heaven ? To Heaven, what can be more grate- ful than works of piety and love ? Our liberties are very strong- ly rooted, but " eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." " How true it is that " Power is continually stealing from the many to the few !" Would that every citizen would rouse himself to a deep sense of the dignity and responsibility of citizenship ! Ig- norance is the ready tool of mean ambition. She longs for license and cannot consort in peace with loving Liberty. She may be the parent of dangerous riot or bloody revolution, but she can- not found a State nor maintain her lawless freedom. Her tri- umphs are brief, and she always falls, by craft or force, under the foot of despotism. I say, with Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, " above all things educate the people:" We have obeyed, and will forever obey the precept- And for our obedience have we not a precious reward in these one thousand children who sing so charmingly the hymns of liberty ; Do they not give us the strongest possible assurance that our country and its institutions are secure ? God bless you, my good children ! You are the richest jewels of Buffalo — the future defenders of purity, liberty and union. May our people grow in magnanimity as in every other vir- tue. There is a noble, self-denying economy. There is a mean, purblind shabbiness which sometimes seeks to commend itself under that honorable name. All honest labor is honorable. The day laborer and the smutched artificer may be as good as anybody, though they have less power to serve the commu- nity than those on whom fortune smiles. They are often proud and would scorn a life of inglorious ease. Hundreds of poor men, in our city, proved their worth last winter by eagerly ac- ORATION — GEOKGE W. CLINTON. 435 cepting public work in lieu of public charity. I am no level- ler — no agrarian. It is not the duty of any government to provide work for all who desire to work ; but it is the duty of every government to encourage industry and promote happi- ness, directly or indirectly, whenever it can do so. The general and state governments require a vast variety and amount of manual and mechanical labor. In times of monetary depression, dearth and panic, it is the duty of govern- ment to set an example to capitalists maintaining and even in- creasing its average expenditures for labor. Shame on the miserable demagogue, who preaches as economy a meanness which strikes down and disheartens honest laborers. I pray you, when economy is preached, see to it that it is just and worthy of a great-hearted people ! My friends, I cannot tell you bow much pleasure you have given me to-day, not only by your kindness to myself, but by the sight of your own happy, animated faces, and by your mag- nificent procession. The demonstrations of the day are indeed sublime. Here is patriotism as pure as the sky above us, and irresistible as the surging ocean. The sounds of innumerable feet upon the march, the martial music, the intermitting mur- murs of great multitudes, with its attempt at silence, are like the multitudinous voices of the sea, but grander, far grander. The sluggish sea has no soul nor life in its motion and its ut- terances ; but the movements and the voices of this vast as- sembly are replete with intelligence and soul. With so grand a spectacle in view how can we doubt the sta- bility of our country and our liberties? Talk of "the spirit of 1776," and of " the times that tried men's souls !" The spirit of 1876 animates you, and your souls would, I doubt not, issue gloriously from trials as bitter and s vere as those through which the heroes of the Revolution passed triumphantly. Then, too, our procession, as did the army of the Revolution, embraces men of every race and country — native-born Ameri- cans, Germans, Irish, English, Scotch, Poles, Frenchmen. But who cares where they were born ? They are all Americans, lov- ers of the Constitution and the Union, of liberty and law. It is hardly fanciful to say that here, in our country, sacred to 436 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. liberty, the reunion of these races may result in the restoration of the primeval type of manhood. My countrymen, I ought to stop here, but I cannot cease without alluding to the highest enjoyment, the most gracious and honorable duty of the day. The Ladies Union Monument Association, in conjunction with the Grand Army of the Repub- lic, have, we trust, made this day forever memorable by break- ing ground for our Soldier's Monument. It is well that they who suffered and died for the perpetuation of the Constitution and the Union should be honored equally with the soldiers of the Revolution. The monument should be a triumphal arch, an ornament of this proud city, a praise to the noble women who have labored so faithf ally for and now insist upon its erection, a fit memorial of soldierly and patriotic virtue, an everlasting instance of the sublime union of public gratitude and heroic valor ; and we are confident that, in due time, the patriotic people of Buffalo will provide for the completion of the holy work this day com- menced. THE EXPERIMENT OF A EEEE GOVERNMENT-- A SUCCESS. AN ADDRESS BY REV. ARTHUR T. CHESTER, D.D. DELIVERED AT BUFFALO, N. Y., JULY 4TH, 1816. The nation itself, on this glorious day, the hundreth anniver- sary of its Declaration of Independence — the nation established, matured, honored — is the most fitting monument to the memory of the men who have founded, developed and defended it. We say to them all, amid this tumult of joy, as we point to our free and happy country, "Behold your work;" and we declare that they shall be remembered with gratitude in all the years and centuries of the coming time. Ye pioneers of liberty, the eloquent speakers and writers pre- ceding the revolution, who, with a daring amounting to audaci- ty, stirred up the people till they cried out, " We will be free !" — ye heroes of the bloody struggle for hberty, attained by victories on the battle-field, when England's strength and pride, repre- sented by the best trained troops of the world, were conquered by a yeoman soldiery ; — ye brave men who resisted to the death when, three score years ago, our land was invaded, and the very spot on which we stand was the scene of conflagration and blood- shed ; — ye patriots of the later time, who, to save your country from dismemberment and destruction, left your various pursuits of peace for the battle's front, and there gave your lives, or re- turned wounded and maimed, or if unhurt, the stronger to re- sist other dangers to which your land may be exposed ; ye noble men and women, of the first years and of the last years of the century, who have counseled and labored and fought and suffer- ed and sacrificed and died for the Republic ; ye living and dead patriots and soldiers, behold your work ! This nation, free and independent, enjoying for itself the rich- est blessings of hberty, and exerting its benign influence up< »n all the nations of the earth, this American nation, these United 438 0UB NATIONAL JUBILEE. States, this confederation of forty millions of rejoicing citizens, as the light of this memorable day dawns upon us, this is your monument ! You shall not be forgotten as long as the lakes and the gulf and the two oceans enclose the favored inhabitants of this free and prosperous Republic. The world admires the force and beauty of the inscription to the memory of the architect of St. Paul's Cathedral, who is bu- ried in its crypt — " Si monumentum requiris, circumspice." We use this language to-day, of the three generations, most of whom are buried in this toil ; who with infinite labor have laid the foundations of this great commonwealth ; who have carried up the structure at such cost of life and treasure ; who have set the top stone to-day amid the shouts of a grateful people ; who have built not a cathedral to vie with the world's proudest structures, but have raised up a nation, the peer of all the nations of the earth, though these may have been a thousand years in build- ing, and this but a hundred ; we say of all these to-day, and with what added emphasis, " If you ask for their monument, look around j r ou !" This monument is now completed. It has often been asked, especially at gatherings on the Fourth of July, whether this gov- ernment would stand. It has been regarded as an experiment. The dangers to which it is exposed have been magnified, and fears expressed that it might prove a failure. Let us hear no more of this. The question is settled ; the Republic is a suc- cess. This day, that with its morning beams marks the begin- ning of its hundreth year of life and growth and prosperity, this day makes it of age, and is the full assurance that it shall con- tinue in the coming years, by the favor of the God of nations, and advance in everything that can add to national glory and honor. What though we look with a degree of sorrow and shame up- on the incomplete shaft at our capital, commenced many years ago in honor of the father of his country — what though the pa- triotic American in Paris, who would pay his respects to the memory of La Fayette, that unselfish apostle of our liberties, must traverse an unfashionable part of the city, and find the mortal remains of the hero in a remote corner of an obscure ADDRESS REV. ARTHUR T. CHESTER. 439 church-yard, covered only by a plain slab large enough to shade his coffin, yet have we a completed, a noble monument to these and all the heroes of the past, in the very existence and in the character of this American nation. Let us hear no language to ~ day but that of praise. We need not use exaggerated terms of boastful pride, but we may proclaim facts. Shame to us, if we do not to-day, rejoice in everything that distinguishes us as a nation, and gives us prominence among the nations of the earth. "What then is the government of these United States in which with glad hearts we rejoice ? It is essentially a democracy, as has been well said, a government of the people, and for the people, but such a government would be the worst in the world — less stable and more dangerous than any form of despotism, unless the great mass of the inhabitants were under the control of intelligence, virtue and religion. There must be general knowledge — a development and ex- pansion of that part of man's nature by which he is lifted out of the domain of the animal and into the reasonable ; then there must be a prevalence of the principles of common justice, and a proper regard for the rights of others ; and there must be, in some form, a recognition of a sovereign God and His claims as related to the issues of eternity, or, the people can only make up a lawless, ignorant mob, unable to take care of themselves and sure to bring ruin upon all around them. We claim, that as a people we always have been and still are under the controlling influence of these great principles. We foster universal education that we may remain intelligent. We furnish at public cost that culture for the masses which is need- ful that each succeeding generation may be wise in the knowl- edge of important truth, the influence of which is felt in the general welfare. We inculcate and enforce a respect for whole- some laws, so that it is the aim of all to secure for themselves and to administer to others that justice which ensures equal rights, and in this respect makes a beggar equal to a President. We adopt some form of faith, some mode of worship, that ex- presses a belief in our higher nature and in a Supreme Being, to whom we are responsible. Upon this triple foundation, gen- eral intelligence, reverence for law and faith in God, the Re- 440 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. public lias been established ; upon these it has been built np ; by these it must be perpetuated. And these have been, are, and must be, the characteristics of this people. These mark us as distinct among the nations. In the possession of these, or at. least in their harmonious combination and general diffusion, we take rank with the most favored and exalted people. We acknowledge none to be su- perior — we take precedence of most. We may point to-day with becoming pride to our educational institutions, adapted to all classes of our citizens, furnishing the highest culture to those who desire it, and giving to all, the poorest and the hum- blest, the moans of attaining t ) intelligent citizenship. We have free schools, a free press, and freedom of opinion and of speech, in such a degree as to make us the admiration and the en- vy of the people of the civilized world. We have such laws and statutes all over the land, State and municipal, and such organized courts of various grades as to secure the surest and most rapid administration of justice, that which is so essential in a community, the basis of which is equal rights. And we have absolute freedom of religious faith and wor- ship — a freedom which has not led to infidelity and atheism. All over the land, in city and hamlet, we see the spires of Chris- tian churches pointing heavenward, and we hear the solemn call of the church bells as the people are summoned every Sab- bath to worship in the sanctuary. We have it written in our national song. " In God is our trust ;" and when in our last great struggle this sentiment stamped itself upon the anxious heart of the nation, we put it upon our large coins, and there it is to-day, by special enactment, " In God we trust." We are a self-governed, intelligent, law-abiding Christian nation. This is the monument upon which our eyes now rest rising in its symmetry and beauty in commemoration of the pa- triotic spirit, the wise counsels and the heroic deeds of all the founders and defenders of the Union. W T e can no more think or speak to-day of defects and blemishes, of open or concealed dangers, than of the spots on the sun's disc, when that glori- ous luminary breaks anew upon the darkened earth and is bathing all nature in its golden light. ADDRESS — REV. ARTHUR T. CHESTER. 441 With most commendable and characteristic zeal, the ladies of Buffalo and vicinity have determined to give outward form and expression to the reverence and gratitude we all feel to- ward the " founders and defenders of the Union." They have chosen a plan of a lofty massive arch, to stand in the most public square of our city, spanning our most beautiful avenue. They have laid, with great industry, the foundation of a fund to pay the cost of the structure, and have invited the citizens of Buffalo to join them to-day in beginning the work. What can be more appropriate than that on this day, when the gratitude of the people has been swelling for a hundred years, it should find an outlet, if only so far as to mark the spot, by breaking the round where shall be laid at once the deep and wide founda- tion of the graceful and imposing pile to be erected upon it. It shall always be one of the most interesting features of the edifice, as it tells its story of its patriotism and bravery of the heroes whose names it bears, and gives its testimony in the coming years to the gratitude of the entire people, that it was begun on the Fourth of July, 1876. And what can be more appropriate than that the women of the land should engage in this enterprise. They gave their fathers and husbands and sons and brothers and lovers with a heroism equal to that of the soldiers who were thus given as martyrs for liberty, While war was raging they were most industrious in preparing clothing for the soldiers, in scraping lint for the wounded, in supplying delicacies for sick. They were found on the field and in the hospitals, overcoming the shrinkage sensitiveness of their nature, accustoming themselves to the sight of gaping wounds and learning to bear without dismay the groans of the suffering, in their purpose to be min- istering angels to the wounded and the dying. What more appropriate now that the clamor of war has ceased and the sweet voice of peace is heard in all our border, than that these gentle, generous spirits. Anxious to show their patriotism in some womanly way at this centennial, should enter upon a work like this? May not the fair honor the brave? And will not every man who has a spark of patriotism — who has any sense of what liberty is worth — who can make any estimate of what the nation's life has cost for a hundred years, 412 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. be ready to respond most cheerfully and generously when these zealous women ask for aid ? Let us cry out in earnest encouragement : Go on, wives, mothers, sisters ! It is a noble work you have undertaken. Here is our offering, before you nsk it. What if the times are hard, there would have been no times at all but for the labor, the sacrifice, the heroism of those whose deeds you commemorate. Lay the foundations, build up the arch, crown the completed work. You shall not want for means. Every American shall furnish at least one stone for the beautiful structure, and our adopted citizens will take pleasure in expressing in the same way to the heroic men who have prepared such a home for them upon the western shores. Shame on the citizen — he is not worthy of the name, native or foreign — who, in this year so frought with sacred memories, so fall of burning appeals to patriotism, and at the call of his fair countrywomen, can refuse to make a contribution to such a cause as this ; when, if each man and boy in our city alone would give but a dollar, the structure would rise rapidly and without interruption, and we should soon be gazing upon its majestic beauty. A few months ago I stood upon the top of the most magnificent arch in the world — the Arch of Triumph in Paris. It is as high as our medium church steeples, and commands a splendid view of that most beautiful of all cities. But, it was erected to cel- ebrate the victories of the Emperor, who made war for its own sake, who sought to build up France at the expense or utter ruin of other nationalities, who allowed ambition to goad him on to a bitter exile and the death of a prisoner. It looks out upon a land whose history dates back more than a thousand years, but whose government is yet unsettled, because the masses are too spirited and liberty -loving to submit quietly to the rule of monarchy, and yet are too fickle and unintelligent to cultivate a stable republic. Our arch — I see it rising in its beauty — its summit towering above these lofty trees. I stand upon its eminence and look around. It has been erected, not by forced contributions to celebrate the bloody victories of a despot who for his selfish ends could devastate the inoffensive nations of his day, not only in Europe but in the East. It has been built by the free gifts ADDRESS — REV. ARTHUR T. CHESTER. 413 of a generous and grateful people to keep in memory the brave deeds and wise counsels of the founders and defenders of the Union, and it overlooks a free republic, tells of victories won over foreign enemies and over intestine foes, not for the injury < >f others, but only for the existence and safety of the country it- self. It tells of progress and growth in mechanism, in art, until we could invite the world to our shores and force them to confess that we had outdone all the nations in our Centennial Exposi- tion. It tells of a contest, carried on peacefully in the presence of these foreign visitors, when it is settled in a peaceful convention of each great political party that one of two men, out of forty millions, shall be the next President, and both men so able, so learned, so good, that, party considerations aside, we do not care which shall be successful at the election. It tells of freedom for all the inhabitants of the land. AVe could not have come to our Centennial with such joy unless that dark cloud of slavery had been dispelled, though at such a cost. The arch looks North and South, to tell our near neigbors of another nationality, and through them all the nations, that this is the home of the free, and to tell our brethern in the opposite direction that we are and must be one people. It is an open arch, not a closed barrier. It invites all to come and dwell among us, and enjoy in full measure the immunities and privi- leges of American citizenship. There it shall stand till another century shall come to an end, and then, the dear old flag waving over it, its stars doubled, nineteen hundred and seventy-six, showing seventy-six shining points on its azure field — then our children's children shall tell what a noble work of patriotism and loyalty we commenced and finished a hundred years before. In this faith we now break the surface for the foundation of the structure, believing that there is power enough in patriotic impulses and in women's pleadings to secure what is necessary to complete it, so that by another national anniversary we may be summoned to rejoice together in its beauty and grandeur, as it declares in plainer language than by an inscription on its walls, that at last it has been shown that this republic is not ungrateful. CENTENNIAL HYMN, BY J. W. BARKER. SUNG AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBKATION, BUFFALO, N. Y., JULY 4tH, 1876 All liail this day immortal Upon the scroll of Time ! We crowd the shining portal Of Freedom's hallowed shrine, We come, a ransomed nation, With songs of lofty cheer, To greet with adoration Our first Centennial year. Through trial and thro' conflict, From danger's darkest night, We tread the glowing summit Of Freedom's towering height ; While in the sky of azure The stars of peace appear, To crown with rising glory Columbia's hundredth year. Great Euler of the Nations, Thy majesty we own ; With songs of glad thanksgiving, We bow before Thy throne ; Thy wealth of peace possessing, So dear to every home, We crave our Father's blessing, The hundred years to come. OUR LAND.-A CENTENNIAL HYMN, BY ALFRED B. STREET. SUNG AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT ALBANY, NEW YORK, JULY 4th, 1876. On our Centennial Height "Warm love and proud delight Fill every breast ! Blessings, all round, we meet ; Praise ! with thy anthems, greet ! North to the South repeat ! East to the West ! Where spreads the Peopled earth. Foreboding Freedom's birth, Our bright flag glows. Bed, for our Battle -sign ; White, for our Peace benign ; Stars, for our States in Twine ; Stripes, for our foes. Broad smiles our lofty Land, Each side an ocean grand ; Snows linked to flowers. As our flag blends its dyes, So, sons of differing skies Find a fixed home to prize, In our free bowers. To HIM, all bend the knee! Shall not the future see Greater our clime ? Vaster our living tide, Harvests and homes allied, Knowledge spread far and wide, 'Till latest time. THE TRIUMPHS OF THE REPUBLIC. AN ORATION BY HON. THEODORE BACON, OF ROCHESTER, DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT PALMYRA, N. T.j JULY 4th, 1876. The occasion which we commemorate to-day, familiar as it is to us by its annual recurrence — fixed as it is in our national life — is in its very conception distinctive and American. It is not the birth-day of a reigning prince, however beloved ; it is not the holiday of a patron saint, however revered ; it is simply the the festival of our national existence. Unimaginative as we are, we have impersonated an idea — the idea of nationality ; and the festival of that idea, instead of a man or a demi-god, we celebrate to-day. And we do right to celebrate it. The fact of this national exist- ence is a great fact. The act which first declared the nation's right to exist was a great act — a brave act. If it was not in- deed, as we have been ready enough to assert, a pivotal epoch in the world's history, ic was beyond question a decisive event in our own history. If it was not the birth-day of the nation — for the nation was born long before — it was the day the still- growing youth became conscious of its young maturity, asserted its personality, and entered on equal terms h)to the community of nations. And whatever errors there may have been in our methods — whatever follies of mere deafening or nerve-distract- ing noise — whatever mad recklessness with deadly explosives, such as will make to-morrow's newspapers like the returns of a great battle — whatever flatulence of vain glorious boasting from ten thousand platforms such as this — it is none the less a goodly and an honorable thing, that the one universal festival of this great nation should be the festival of its nation- ality alone. This, and this only, is the meaning of our being together to-day ; that we are glad, and joyful, and grateful, that we are a nation ; and that in unison with more ORATION — THEODORE BACON. 44? than two-score millions of people, throughout the vast expanse of our imperial domains, we may give utterance to the joyful and thankful thought, "The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad." It is well then, to celebrate and rejoice. The many reasons we have for joy and pride are familiar enough to you. If there were any danger of your forgetting them, they . are recalled annually to your remembrance by addresses such as you have honored me by calling on me to deliver here to-day. And in considering how I could best respond to your request, in the few moments which you can spare from your better occupation of the day, I have thought it superfluous to repeat to you those glories of which your minds are already so full, deeming it a better service to you, and worthier of the day, I suggest certain imitations upon national self-laudation. Let me recount to you summarily, the familiar and ordinary grounds of our boasting on such days as this. Then go over them with me, one by one ; consider them soberly ; and see whether we are in any danger of exalting ourselves unduly by reason of them. 1. We conquered our independence. 2. We govern ourselves. 3. We have enormously multiplied our numbers, and ex- tended our boundaries. 4. We have enormously increased our material wealth, and subdued the forces of nature. 5. Education and intelligence are in an unequaled degree diffused throughout our population. 6. To crown all, we have but just now subdued a gigantic rebellion, and in doing so have incidentally suppressed the great national shame of human slavery. Consider them : 1. We conquered our independence. Beyond doubt, this was a grand thing to do, even in view of all the advantages that aided our fathers, and of all the difficulties that burdened their enemies. It was not, indeed, except in a certain limited and qualified sense, what it is com- monly misnamed, a revolution. It was rather a movement of 448 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. conservatism — of resistance to an innovating despotism, seek- ing to impose the bonds of distant authority on those who were free-born, and who had always governed themselves. This resistance to ministerial Dovelties was in the interest of all Englishmen, and, until this very day one hundred years ago, was in the name of King George himself, whom we still recog- nized as our rightful monarch, after more than a year of flagrant war against his troops. It was (do not forget) war of defence, against an invader from the paralyzing distance of 3,000 miles ; yet that invader was the most powerful nation in Europe. It enlisted (remember) the active alliance of France, andstirrred up Spain and Holland to separate wars against our enemy ; yet even with these great helps, the persistency of the struggle, the hardships and discouragements through which it was maintain- ed to its final success, were enough to justify the honor in which we hold the assertors of our national independence. 2. We have inherited, it is true, by a descent through many generations, certain principles of government which recognize the people as the source of authority over the people. Yet not even the founders of this federal republic — far less ourselves, their century remote descendants, could claim the glory either of inventing these eternal principles or of first applying them in practice. Before Jefferson were Plato, and Milton, and Locke, and Eousseau. Before Philadelphia were Athens, and pre- Augustan Rome ; Florence and Geneva ; Ghent and Ley- don ; the Swiss Republics and the Commonwealth of England. Before the United States of America were the Achsean League, the Hauseatic League, and — closest pattern and exemplar — the United Provinces of the Low Countries. Beyond doubt, how- ever, it is something to be glad of that our ancestors began the century which closes to-day, upon the solid foundations of a faith in the right of self-government, when so many other na- tions of the earth were to be compelled to labor and study to- ward the acceptance of that faith, or to legislate and fight and revolutionize toward the embodiment of it in institutions. But whether that prodigious advantage with which we began the century should be now the occasion of pride or of some different emotion, might depend on other questions : "Whether, for ex- ORATOEN" THEODORE BACON. 449 ample, tliat advantage has enabled us to maintain to this day the pre-eminence over other nations which it gave us a hundred years ago ; whether, as they have advanced, we have only held our own, or gone backward ; whether our ten talents, the mag- nificent capital with which we were entrusted, have been hid in a napkin and buried, while the one poor talent of another has been multiplied a hundred fold by diligence and skill. It is a great thing, no doubt, for a nation to govern itself, whether well or ill ; but it is a thing to be proud of only when its self-gov- ernment is capable and just. Let us look for a moment at the relative positions in tins respect of our own and other nations a hundred years ago, and now. A century since, the idea of parliamentary or representative government, primitive as that idea had been in the earliest Teutonic communities, and embalmed as it might still be in the reveries of philosophers, had no living form outside of these colonies, and of that fatherland from which their institutions were derived, and with which they were at war. In Great Britain itself, a sodden conservatism, refusing to adapt insti- tutions to changing circumstances, had suffered them to become distorted with inequalities ; so that the House of Commons, while it still stood for the English People, and was already beginning to feel the strength which has now made it the supreme power in the nation, was so befouled with rotten bor- oughs and pocket boroughs, that ministers easily managed it with places, and pensions, and money. The whole continent of Western Europe was subjected to great or little autocrats, claiming to rule by divine right, uttering by decrees their sovereign wills for laws, despising even the pretense of asking the concurrence of the governed. In France, an absolute des- pot, a brilliant court, a gorgeous and vicious civilization of the few, were superposed upon a wretched, naked, underfed peas- antry ; tithe-oppressed, tax-ridden ; crushed with feudal bur- dens upon the soil, or dragged from it to be slaughtered in foreign wars for matters they never heard of. Germany was either parcelled out, like Italy, among countless princelings, maintaining every one his disproportionate army, and court, and harem, and squeezing out taxes and blood from his people ut- 450 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. terly without responsibility ; or was crushed beneath the iron despotism of the Great Frederick in the North, or of the less ca- pable Empire in the South. To the East, the great plains of Russia were an unknown darkness, where a shameless fury main- tained an Asiatic reign of force and terror. Here and there a philosophical recluse was evolving froni his books and his in- vention, systems of government which denied and antagonized the claims of divine right on which every dynasty in Europe was founded ; yet so remote from any practical apphcation did these speculations seem that the most absolute monarchs took pride in sharing them and fostering them. There were, indeed, things called " republics ;" there were the des- potic aristocracies of Venice and Genoa ; there were their High Mightinesses, the estates of the United Provinces ; there were the confederated cantons of Switzerland, fenced in their moun- tain strongholds, but without influence upon European thoughts or institutions. Over against that Europe of 1776, set the Europe of to-day. Nation after nation — call off their names : observe their systems of government, and say, when you have completed the tale, how many sovereigns there are who rest their title to supremacy upon divine right by inheritance ; how many governments there are whose daily continuance — how many whose very birth and origin, are derived avowedly from no other source than " the consent of the governed." There are indeed crowned heads to-day ; heads wearing crowns which have descended by but two or three degrees from the most confident assertors of " the right divine of kings to govern wrong ;" — right royal men and women— nay more, right manly men and right womanly women : yet of all these there is hardly one who pretends to be more than the mere executive of the national will, expressed through a representative legislature. The England which our fathers de- nounced as tyraut, and foe of freedom — let us not commit the anachronism of confounding her with the England of to-day. Ruled by a National Assembly chosen by a suffrage little short of universal, exercising final and absolute legislative authority with the merest advisory concurrence of an hereditary Senate ; its executive body little more than a standing committee of the ORATIOX — THEODORE BACOX. 451 House of Commons, removable in an instant by a mere expres- sion of the will of the House ; and all under the nominal presi- dency of a quiet matron, to whom even the external cere- monies of her position are irksome ; with a system of local and municipal administration, which, however its defects, may well invite our admiration and study : the sturdiest proclaimer of the doctrines of our " Declaration " could hardly have figured to himself a future America which should more fully embody those doctrines than the realm of George the Third has come to embody them under his gr.mddaughtar. H we look across the channel, we find all Western Europe, from the Polar Sea to the Mediterranean, the undisputed domain of constitutional repre- sentative, elective government. If the name and state of King or Emperor are maintained, it is in effect but as a convenient instrument for the performance of necessary functions in the great public organism, and with a tacit, or even an express acknowledgement on the part of the crown that " the consent of the governed " is the true source of its own authority. Over the feudal France which I have but just now pictured to you, has swept a flood which not only destroyed institutions, but extirpated their immemorial foundations ; which not only leveled the hideous inequalities of madisevalism, but leveled upward the Gallic mind itself ; so that hardly less than the American citizen — far more than the British subject — is the Frenchman of to-day penetrated by the consciousness of the equal rights of all men before the law. His form of supreme administration may vary from time to time, in name, or even in substance ; but for fifty years it has stood upon the basis of the public consent, or, when it has failed so to stand, has fallen. The France of Richelieu — the France of that Louis XIV who dared to say of the State, " It is I" is the France whose latest king called himself no longer King of France, but King of the French ; whose latest Emperor claimed no right to rule but from a popular election by universal suffrage — boasted of being " Tlie Elect of seven millions" — and styled himself in the most solemn instruments, " By the Grace of God and the Witt of the People, Emperor of the French ;" and which now, dispensing with even the fiction of a Sovereign, administers its affairs with 452 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. a prudence, wisdom and economy which have drawn the ad- miration of neighboring nations. In United Italy — in the two great empires which share between them Germany and Hun- gary — in the Scandinavian Kingdoms — and at last even in Spain, so long the distracted prey of hierarchy and absolutism, the autocracy of an hereditary monarch has given way to par- liamentary government and ministerial responsibility. The successor of Catharine the Second, by conferring spontaneously upon the half-civilized subjects of his vast empire not only personal freedom, but such local autonomy as they are capable of, is educating them toward a higher participation in affairs. And now, most marvelous testimony to the prevalence of those opinions upon which our own institutions are based, the world has seen within a month, a new Sultan, a new chief of Islam, announced to Europe as succeeding to the chair and the sword of Mahomet, "by the unanimous will of the Turkish people 1" Let us be quite sure, my fellow-citizens, before we boast onrselves immeasurably above other nations by reason of the excellence of our political institutions, not only that they are better than all others in the world, but that we have done something in these hundred years towards making them better ; or at least that we have not suffered ours to become debased and corrupt, while those of other nations have been growing better and purer. Is our law-making and our conduct of affairs — national, state, and local — abler and honester now than then ? Is tho ballot-box cleaner, and a surer reflection of the public mind upon public men and measures ? Or are we still in some small degree hampered by the tricks of politicians, so that we fmd-c-urselves voting into offices men whom we despise — giving support to measures which we abominate ? Has public opinion grown so in that sensitive honor " which feels a stain like a wound," that it compels public men to be not only above reproach, but above suspicion ? Or has it rather come to con- tent itself with weighing evidence, and balancing probabilities, and continuing its favor to any against whom the proofs may fall short of absolute conviction of felony ? Is the vast organ- ization of our public business contrived and controlled, as it is in every other civilized country, and as in every successful ORATION — THEODORE BACON. 453 private business it must be, for the sole end of doing that business efficiently and cheaply ? Or has it become a vast system for the reward of party services by public moneys — a vast mechanism for the perpetuation of party power by sup- pressing the popular will — with the secondary purpose of doing the public work as well as may be consistent with the main design? Have we, through dullness or feebleness, suffered methods to become customary in our public service, which if, attempted in the British post-office or custom-house, would overthrow a ministry in a fortnight — if in the French, might bring on a revolution? My fellow-citizens, I offer you no answers to these questions. I only ask them ; and leavo unasked many others which these might suggest. But when we have found answers to our satisfaction, we shall know better how far to exalt ourselves above the other nations of the earth. 3. A more indisputable support for national pride may be found, perhaps in our unquestioned and enormous multiplica- tion of numbers and expansion of territory. These have certainly been marvelous : perhaps unparalleled. It is a great thing that four millions of human beings, occupy- ing in 1776 a certain expanse of territory, should bo succeeded in 1876 by forty millions, occupying ten times that expanse. But let us be quite sure how much the increase of numbers is a necessary result of natural laws of propagation, working unre- strained in a land of amazing productiveness, unscourged by famine or pestilence, and burdened by but one great war during three generations of men ; how much to the prodigious importation of involuntary immigrants from Africa during the last century, and of voluntary colonists, induced by high rewards for labor and enterprise, during this ; and how much to any special virtue in our ancestors or ourselves. Let us be sure what degree and quality of glory it may be which a nation lays claim to for the extension of boundaries by mere mercantile bargain and purchase, or by strong armed conquest from its weaker neighbors. Let us remember, withal, that great as has been our growth in population and extent over this vacant con- tinent which offered such unlimited scope for enlargement, other nations have not stood still. A century ago there was a little 454 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. sub-alpine monarchy of two or three million subjects, winch within these twenty years has so expanded itself by honorable warfare and the voluntary accession of neighboring provinces, that it now comprehends all the twenty-five millions of the Italian people. A century ago there was a little Prussian mon- archy of three or four million subjects, which, sparing to us meanwhile millions of its increasing numbers, has grown until it has become the vast and powerful German Empire of forty millions. And, while we take a just pride in the marvelous growth of New York and Philadelphia, and the meteoric rise of Chicago and St. Louis, it is well not to forget that within the same century London has added three millions to its numbers ; Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Glasgow, have sprung from insignificance into the second rank of cities ; and that dull Prussian town, which, as the Great Frederick's capital, boasted but 100,000 inhabitants, has become a vast metropolis of nearly a million people, doubling its numbers in the last quarter of that period. If our own increase of population has indeed surpassed these marvelous examples — if our territorial expansion has in fact been larger and swifter than that of the Russian Empire in Europe and Asia, or of the British Empire in India, America and Australia, then the more are we justified in that manner of pride which is natural to the youth grown to a healthy maturity of strength and stature. 4. Thus also, if we have not greatly surpassed the rest of the world in our growth in material wealth, and in our sub- jugation of natural forces to human use, we may fairly claim at least to have kept in the van of progress. Yet here, too, while we have great and just cause for pride, let us not- err by confounding the positive merits of our nation with the adventitious advantages which have stimulated or created its successes. It has been a different task, though perhaps not an easier one, to take from the fresh fields and virgin soil of this vast continent, fruitful in all that is most useful for human food and raiment, the wealth that has been the sure reward of steadfast industry— from the task of stimulating the produc- tive powers of lands exhausted by thousands of years of crop- bearing, up to that exquisite fertility that makes an English ORATION— THEODORE BACON. 455 wheat -field an astonishment even to a Western New York farmer. It is indeed a singular fortune which ours has been that every decade of years has revealed beneath our feet some new surprise of mineral wealth ; the iron everywhere ; the an- thracite of Pennsylvania ; the copper of Late Superior ; the gold of California ; the bituminous coal of the western coal fields ; the petroleum which now illuminates the world ; and finally, the silver which has deluged and deranged the trade of the Orient. Let us not be slow to remember that simh natural advantages impose obligations, rather than justify pride in com- parison with those old countries where nature has spoken long ago her last word of discovery, and where labor and science can but glean in the fields already harvested. And when we look with wonder upon the vast public works, not disproportion- ate to the vastness of our territory, which the last half-century especially has seen constructed, let us not forget that the in- dustry and frugality which gathered the capital that built our railroad system — not all of which certainly, was American capital — the trained intellect of the engineers who designed and constructed its countless parts — are a greater honor to any people than 70,000 miles of track : that the patient ingenuity of Fitch and Fulton are more to be boasted of than the owner- whip of the steam navies of the world : the scientific culture and genius of Morse, than 200,000 miles of telegraphic wire. 5. If I have thought it needless to enlarge upon other sub- jects, familiar upon such occasions, for public congratulation, especially will it be superfluous to remind such an audience as this how broad and general is the diffusion of intelligence and education through large portions of our country. But let us not be so dazzled by the sunlight which irradiates us here in New York, as to forget the darkness of illiteracy which over- whelms vast regions of our common country ; that if New York, and Massachusetts, and Ohio, offer to all then- children opportunities of learning, there exists in many states a numerous peasantry, both white and black, of besotted ignorance, and struggling but feebly, almost without aid or opportunity, toward some small enlightenment. Let us not overlook the fact, in our complacency, that while we, in these favored communities, 456 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. content ourselves with offering education to those whom we leave free to become sovereign citizens in abject ignorance, other nations have gone beyond us in enforcing universal education ; in not only throwing open the feast of reason, but in going into the highways and hedges, and compelling them to come in. [ n 6. Coming to the last of the familiar sources of national pride which I have suggested, we may fairly say that the emo- tions with which a patriot looks back upon the conclusions of the period beginning in 1860 must be of a most varied and con- flicting sort. The glory of successful war must be tempered by shame that red-handed rebellion should ever have raised its head in a constitutional nation. If it was not permitted to a Roman general, so it is not becoming to us, to triumph over conquered fellow-citizens. If we rejoice, as the whole world does rejoice, that the conflict which for four years distracted us, end- ed in the restoration of four million slaves to the rights of free manhood, the remembrance that neither our national conscience nor our statesmanship had found a better way out of the bond- age of Egypt than through a Red Sea of blood, may well qualify our reasonable pride ; the question, how these millions and their masters are yet to be lifted up into fitness for their new sovereignty over themselves and over us, may well sober our exultation. If I have departed from the common usage of this occasion, in assuming that you know, quite as well as I do, the infinite causes that exist for pride, and joy, and common congratulation in being American citizens, I beg leave before I close to suggest one further reason for the emotions which are natural to all our hearts to-day. It has been common to us and to other nations, — to our friends alike and our detractors, — to speak of the insti- tutions under which we live, as new, experimental, and of ques- tionable permanency. Fellow-citizens, if we can learn nothing- else from the comparative view of other nations to which I have been hastily recommending you, this fact at least presses itself home upon us : that of all the nations of the earth which are under the light of Christian and European civilization, the in- stitutions of America are those which the vicissitudes of a cen- tury have left most unchanged ; that, tested by the history of ORATION THEODORE BACON. 4:57 those hundred years, and by the experience of every such nation republican democracy, means permanency ,^ not revolution ; wise conservatism, not destruction ; and that all other institutions are as unstable as water in comparison. I believe that to-day this American "experiment" is the most ancient system in Christendom. Not a constitution in Europe but exists by grace of a revolution of far later date than the fram- ing of our constitution, which stands now, immortal monument to the wisdom of its founders, almost unchanged from its pris- tine shape and substance. If the stable British monarchy seems to you an exception, reflect upon the silent revolution which in that time has annulled the power of the crown, and almost sub- verted its influence ; remember the suppression of the Irish Par- liament, the removal of the Catholic disabilities which for a cen- tury and a half had been a foundation stone of the constitution ; remember the Reform Bill which prostrated the power of the aristocracy; the repeal of the Corn Laws, which reversed the economic policy of a thousand years ; look at the audacious legislation which within two years has destroyed even the names of that judicial system which is identified with English monar- chy-^at that which within a few weeks has dared to add a flim- sy glitter to the immemorial title of the sovereign herself — and you may well be proud of the solidity and permanence of our institutions compared with the swift-dissolving forms of Euro- pean systems. We know, however, that institutions, even the best of them, cannot long exist without change. As in physical life, there must be either growth or decay ; when growth has ceased, de- cay cannot long be postponed. How shall it be with those in- stitutions which a noble ancestry has bequeathed to us, and in which we rejoice to-day ? Let us not forget that the day is the beginning of a new century, as well, as the close of an old one. Not one of us is to see the close of the coming age, as none of us saw the opening of the last. And while it is given to none to discern the future, we know well that institutions, whether civil or social, cannot long continue better than the people who enjoy them. Be it ours, therefore, so far as lies in us, to per- petuate for our remote offspring the benefits which have come 458 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. down from our ancestors. Let us cultivate in ourselves — let us teach to our children — those virtues which alone make our free institutions possible or desirable. Thus, and only thus, shall we make this day not merely the commemoration of departed glories, but the portal to that Golden Age which has been the dream of poets and the promise of prophets, and toward which, as we dare to hope, the event which we now celebrate has so mightily impelled mankind. Our eyes shall not behold it ; but woe to us if we cease to hope for it and to labor towards it It may be hard — it is hard — for us, surrounded by the green graves and the desolated homes which witbin a dozen years a ghastly civil war has made in this religious and enlightened nation, — for us here, in the very presence of the tattered yet venerated symbols of that strife,* to believe that the day can ever shine upon the earth When the war-drnni throbs no longer, and the battle-flags are furled In the parliament of man, the federation of the -world : When the common senfe of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law. The reign of " Peace on Earth — Good Will towards Men'' — the dominion of Reason and Justice over Force and Fraud — it may be far off, but it shall surely come. Down the dark future, through long generations, The sounds of strife grow fainter, and then cease ; And like a bell, in solemn, sweet vibrations, I hear once more the voice of Christ say," Peace?" .Peace ! and no longer from its 'brazen portals, The blast of war's great organ shakes the skies : But beautiful as songs of the immortals, The holy melodies of Love arise. * The worn-out regimental colors of the 33d New York Volunteers, a regiment which went to the war from Wayne County, were carried in the procession and set up in front of the speaker'6 stand. FOR UNION AND RECONCILIATION. AN ORATION BY HON. EDWARD CANTWELL, DELIVERED AT MOORE's CREEK, NORTH CAROLINA, JULY 4TH, 1876. A.S once, Simeon the Prophet, in the Temple at Jerusalem, with outstretched hands and streaming eyes beheld a Saviour's advent, and a light which should lighten the Gentiles and be the glorj of his own people, so, standing here on the Fourth day of July, at the foot of this North Carolina monument, I see the gate of another Temple open; I behold another light streaming by in the thick darkness; and as the gladsome rays penetrate the gloom, the very sands beneath my feet, appear to awaken and reverberate with celestial harmonies, which fill the air and float on every breeze. This is the centennial year of the American Republic. We are to-day celebrating the first centennial in the centennial year of the national existence. No prouder glow of patriotic exaltation inspired the last Prophet of Judea than now swells the breast of every North Carolinian. Jutting far out to sea, the eastern coasts of North Carolina are the first to greet the sun in his daily course of glory and of empire. Here, on the fourth day of July, 1584, Philip Amidas, and Arthur Barlowe arrived and established the first English colony in America, bequeathing to posterity the priceless legacy of Anglo-Saxon liberty, and therefore, appropriately here in North Carolina, begin the celebrations of the centennial anni- versary. Here, where the grand and unfulfilled vow of a co- lossal continental America for a country ; the refuge of liberty and the asylum of the oppressed, was first conceived and re- corded. Here, where the peal of its signal gun first broke the stillness of the morning air ; at Moore's Creek, where its first victory was won ; where the first North Carolina blood was shed, and upon the spot where the bones of John Grady of Duplin, her first martyred offering to liberty, He buried. Far from you and me, my friends, this day, be any sentiment 460 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. which shall make us, cold or indifferent, or stand here serene } and unmoved. This glorious spot is our own soil. These as- sociations belong to us and to it and to the hour. We are Americans, but we are also Carolinians. We are the country- men of Adams, and of Hamilton, and Greene, and we are also the countrymen of Washington, of Caswell, of Harnett, and Jefferson, and we are proud of all these names. We glory in their achievements. We emulate their virtues ; we inherit and control that whole America they loved and that same great Republic they founded, and we propose to-day with the bless- ing and by the favor of Almighty God, to transmit this vast ter- ritory, these boundless liberties; the birfcright and inheritance of the whole American people; unshorn, undiminished and un- impaired to our remotest posterity. Fellow-citizens, one hundred years ago on the brow of this same hill there was an entrenchment occupied on the night of the twenty-sixth of February, A. D. 1176, by Col. Alexander Lillington, of the sixth regiment New Hanover mili- tia, with a battalion of minute men of that command. During the night Colonel Richard Caswell of Dobbs county arrived with one thousand militiamen from the counties of Craven, Duplin, Johnston and Wake. This constituted the American or patriot force. The tories, estimated at three thousand men, under Generals McDonald and McLeod, were encamped on the other side of the bridge. They came this way going to old Brunswick to join Lord Campbell, the Royal Governor of South Carolina, and the third brother of the Duke Argyle, who, with Sir Henry Clinton and a British army and the Royal Governor of North Carolina, Mar- tin, were coming up the Cape Fear river from Smithville, then called Fort Johnson, to meet them. Colonel James Moore of the Continental army with several hundred men, was approach- ing by forced marches from the Bladen side. Lillington and Caswell, as I have said, were here in their front.. Their situa- tion was critical in the extreme. They could not wait a mo- ment. They had to fight, and by daybreak of the morning of the 27th the action began. The tories led by McLeod himself, attempted to cross the bridge ; but during the night the planks ORATION EDWARD CANTWELL. 4fil had been removed and the heavy timbers greased. As they ap- proached the American rifles opened a deadly fire, and their ranks were decimated by volleys of broken skillets and crockery, discharged into them from a small field-piece stationed about where I stand. General McLeod fell mortally wounded, Camp- bell and a number of others were killed outright, and thus the advance was thrown into confusion. In the meanwhile Captain Ezekiel Slocumb of Wayne, the husband of Mary, " bloody as a butcher and muddy as a ditcher " forded the creek and the swamp, and fell on their rear. The route was complete. Colo- nel Moore came up after the fight. Mrs. Slocumb, disturbed by a dream, and riding all night to see her husband, guided by the sound of the guns, got here soon after the fighting began. She remained on the field attending the wounded. That night she returned to her baby, spreading everywhere she went the glori- ous news. That day, in these western wilds history and liberty found a new Thermopylae. Another name was added to those that wiU never die. The American rebellion organized and con- certed at Hilton near Wilmington, North Carolina, on the 17th March (Patrick's Day), 1773 between Josiah Quincy, Cor- nelius Harnett, and Robert Howe of Brunswick, thence forward became a Revolution. We are here then face to face as it were, with one of those great events which make up what is called history. We stand at the shrine of a martyr. These sands at our feet were once soaked with gore. Here Grady fell and his was the only life lost on the patriot side. From his expiring heart liberty drew its last libation. He perished let us remember in a great national cau*e and in no private quarrel ; for an idea and not for lucre or in the way of business; for the continent which gave him birth, as well as for North Cai'olina and "the cause of Bos- ton ;" for human rights and humanity's sake as swell as in ob% dience to his country's laws He was more than a Spartan, for he died for the world — for eternity and not for time. — Young men of Duplin and Pender, this monument on which you gaze, whereon his name is inscribed rises from the death-bed of a plain North Carolina boy. It aspires to the skies near one of your own obscurest creeks. There were millions of such timbers 4(32 OCR NATIONAL JUBILEE. as those in yon bridge unhewn in the forest then, and there are millions of them unhewn now. There are a thousand such creeks. But those planks on which Grady looked a hundred years ago, are still in one sense undecayed by time, still arch the stream from bank to bank. — The solid materials may perish ; the deep sluggish stream may shrink beneath its bed ; nay, the earth itself shall melt and pass away, or roll itself up like a scroll, but the name of a hero like this, i3 immortal. Another hundred years may elapse and the purpose of his sacrifice re- main unfulfilled, but that purpose will survive this monument, yes, the Republic itself. That " continental" army whose tri- umphs here began shall yet, by your aid, master the continent. It has marched under your fathers over mountain and valley. It buckles with hooks of steel the Atlantic and Pacific slopes; and it will continue to march on and on after we are dead, until the dream of the fathers shall be your reality, every American a continental, and the American continent with all its coasts and seas, and lands and islands, the snow-covered peaks of Alaska, in the region of perpetual winter, and the purple blooms of the Antilles, and the sweet scented gales of the Carribean equator, all, all shall become what God and nature formed them to be, the entire, absolute and exclusive property of a United and American people. I might ignore allusion to the civil conflict between and among the American people and States, which for the last ten and fif- teen years has so plainly checked the national prosperity. But the subject is one which cannot be ignored to-day. We must learn to speak of it as any other historical event. You are thinking about it now, and it is mere affectation to pretend we can ignore it. My impression is, that now it is all over ; there are very few of us here, who would have had that conflict result differently. We now see that two republics, both military, with a frontier line of more than three thousand miles each to defend, would contribute very little to the happiness or the progress of the American family. It would have been utterly impossible to have retained even the semblance of political or popular liberty. Slavery, wliich is necessary in the infancy of great empires, pass- 0RA1I0N — EDWARD CANTWEIX. 463 es away by force or consent with the growth of commerce and the extension of civilization. "Wherever this system of labor is suffered, certain political and social organizations attend it which are transient and indefensible. In its absence they disappear like the scenes in a theatre when the curtain drops betw r een the performers and the audience. I have insisted, and I do now in- sist that the right of secession was recognized in the Constitu- tion. We have, however, voted it away. It exists elsewhere, and I will now say that its exercise in any state or government worthy of the name is utterly improbable and impossible. There are not a thousand men in North Carolina who would take back their slaves or vote for slavery again ; and there never were three hundred secessionists per se. How amusing do the propositions of the South Carolina Commissioners now appear ! You remember we offered them free trade and the undisturbed navigation of the Mississippi. To our astonishment they claimed to be the owners of the river. They never comprehended our theories and that we had left the Union. They demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter and the raising of the flag over its blackened and moldering ruins. We advanced our regiments and displayed our colors in sight of the Federal mansion ; we occupied the district and blocka- ded the Potomac. We offered to pay for the public buildings. We proposed to assume our share of the public debt. Do you remember the response? Like the Roman Senate when their beards were pulled by Alaric, the American Congress continued its session; * * * * The great departments at Washington transacted business as usual, but a million of men, abandoning home, fami and workshop rushed to the defence of the beleaguered capital. Their blood enriched the soil of every southern State. Their man- gled corpses ridged the fields and crimsoned the streams from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. So generous and wealthy a response to the demands of the occasion ; such ardor, pervading all ranks of the northern population was never before seen, ex- cept when under Peter the Hermit, Europe precipitated herself upon the East and with fiery zeal, wrested the holy places from the grasp of the Infidel. In vain, and again in vain, the south- 464 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. era legions, marshalled with matchless skill; inflamed with all the ardor of their climate ; the examples of valor ; hereditary bravery ; the love of fame, the smiles of beauty and the sym- pathies of half the world, aroused by the spectacle of such suf- ferings and such dauntless fortitude; dashed themselves with frantic valor against those solid walls ; those long, impenetrable lines of cold and glittering steel. And day by day the Federal grip became tighter, and the Federal lines nearer, and never went back. Through the silent watches of long and starless nights, the bitter cold of the prisons in Lake Erie, and long, cruel marches, day and night, along the Potomac, step by step, and hour by hour, as these grim veterans trudged the sloppy roads and scaled the diffi- cult mountains, they began to see stalking at their head, in- stead of Stonewall Jackson, and Polk, and Johnston, and A. P. Hill, who had fallen on the battle field, a spectre, a skeleton in armor, to which men afterwards gave shape and called the great collapse. The gordian knot was cut ; a problem was solved which had baffled statesmanship. The Union was saved by the very instrumentality which had imperilled its existence. Foiled in every effort, weak with exertion, bleeding at every pore, we laid down our arms and withdrew from the contest when our lines were no longer of sufficient strength to enclose the captures we made ; our means did not suffice to keep us and our prisoners from starvation. A more sudden and com- plete disintegration of a terribly effective military power was never before, and only once since, seen in history. We were like poor, betrayed and bleeding France at Sedan, with her cartridges filled with sawdust and her gun-carriages honeycombed by treachery ; but there was this difference. It was one which made this combat most remarkable and this civil war unexampled. There was no treachery here. Gene- ral Monk, in England, betrayed the Republic he might have re-created ; Wallenstein, in Germany, allowed his regiments to tear down the emblems of his master and replace them with his own. Arnold sacrificed himself, and betrayed his country; Maximilian was tricked to death by men of his own command; and Georgey, in the Hungarian struggle, preferred life and ORATION EDWARD CANTWELL. 405 chains to death and liberty. At the close of this war a few of the baser sort took the "iron clad" oath; but no traitor's hand smutched the banners of the great rebellion ; no treason hatched discord in the Union cam}?. Had the United States been destroyed, they would have gone down like the frigate Cumberland at Hampton Roads, in fifty feet water, but in open fight ; the ocean pouring in over her bows and flooding the deadly breach, but not one single drop coming up from any leak ; her crew standing undismayed, beside their shotted guns; their flag at the mizzen; no puling murmur mingling with the murmurs of the green sea weed and the pitiless waves; no human groans breaking the defiant thunders of her last artillery. The great silent chieftain of our confederacy made but one speech after Appomattox. " Soldiers," said he, " we have done our duty ; now let us go home and be good citizens. Let the dead past bury its dead." There is a beautiful story in Tenny- son, how when Elaine felt the cold hand of death approaching, she called for writing materials and composed a letter to her Lancelot. And she made them promise her that when she died, they would place her on a barge and crown her with flowers, and they would put the same letter in her own hand, and the old dumb servitor of the castle should steer her dead body to the feet of her lover. The Confederate States Republic is dead, and best guided and guarded by the councils of Lee, is floating to her resting place upon the Appomattox. The dead steered by the dumb, crowned with flowers, and dressed in a gemmed and regal robe. Like Elaine, let her cling with undying grasp to the emblems of her purity. Like Elaine, let her carry herself, her sealed and spotless record ; let her wear her crown, put on her by the hands of her soldiers. I cannot proceed in this strain. I feel that I tread where the ashes are yet hot, and fire coals still glow; but them I do not fear. There are belligerents more terrible to me than the missiles of death, or an army with banners. Tongues of ser- pents and faces of brass, more hostile and more venemous than the combined Union and Confederate hosts. Veterans of the quill and umbrella brigade, who were not remarkable for 466 OOR NATIONAL JUBILEE. their prowess till the war was over, and with whom the fight- ing is not yet done. Confederates who were " not whipped." Union men whose valor was conspicuous at a distance from the seat of war, heroically suffering in the loss of their substitutes- Spectators in the amphitheater through which heroes were driven; particles of dust glittering with borrowed lustre above the chariot wheels of fiery strife, lingering in the air, reluctant to descend and mix again with common mold. The passions and prejudices of this moment will, however, one day subside. This dust will surely sometime be laid. Tears of grateful sympathy for heroic deeds shall yet deck your cheeks. "When at last all the survivors of those terrible combats shall be cov- ered by the clods for whose possession they struggled, if not before, there will come a day, and it may come around this monument, when the recollections of the past shall be invoked only to prevent its recurrence, and the victories on either side will be celebrated by the vanquished. Fellow-citizens, nations are subject to the same accidents and diseases as individuals. They traverse and complete the same circle. Some scarcely survive the casualties of infancy, and some die of old age. Never was there one which in an hundred years had collected so many elements of vitality as this and then suddenly go down. I verily believe this nation has a destiny and a his- tory yet to be. I think it probable it is a favored nation and a chosen people. As the Egyptians were once a chosen people, and the Hebrews after them a favored nation. I think we are bound to attain the maximum of our power. No human hand has led us hither, and no human hand can curb that destiny or arrest its progress. In the morning of youth the American Hercules has strangled the serpents which assailed his cradle ! As his strength matures, other and more successful labors in- vite his imperial glance and arms. The haughty capital of Rome is already rivaled by a more splendid edifice on the Potomac ; our population resembles that of the ancient mistress of the world in its admixture of all peoples, derived from every clime, and mingling in the same fierce current the restless elements of the globe. Boundless in its ambition, reckless of dangers and impatient of control, sustained in all its trials and ORATtOtt — EDWARD OANTWELL. 4G7 wonderful progress by an omnipotent hand which has been more than once visibly interposed, the vast political system of which America is at once the centre and a nucleus, rises grandly up to the utmost of our hopes, moves forward with resistless sweep, as if it were, indeed, a part of the Celestial Economies. Like the Colossus at Rhodes, between whose feet once floated the commerce of the world, it holds a beacon in one hand and an arrow in the other, towers to the zenith with unflinching gaze. Heaven's lightnings crest her head. The live thunders sleep among her purple hights and sun crowned crags. Beaming down with a starry, mild and planetary light, the well-known forms of her Northern States and seas, no longer cast across this Southern hemisphere, dark and doubtful shadows. They climb up with us together and between the older constellations, walking among them and by them, with majestic port and pride ; as though the other planets only marked our footprints on the skies, and the universe was our throne. OUK KEPUBLIO. AN ORATION BY REV. JEREMIAH TAYLOR, D. D., DELIVERED AT PROVIDENCE, R. I., JULY 4tH, 1876, AT THE PLANTING OF A CENTENNIAL TREE IN ROGER WILLIAM'S PARK. Mr. President, Ladies, Gentlemen, Youth and Children : A German schoolmaster once said, " Whenever I enter my school- room, I remove my hat and bow with reverence, for there I meet the future dignitaries of my country." Standing as we do this hour upon the high places of national prosperity and join- ing with the forty millions of people, the inhabitants of our proud and grateful country in this centennial celebration, the future outlook is awe-inspiring. To us as to him of old, who beheld the bush burning, yet not consumed, there comes the admonition, that we are standing in the presence of the high and the holy. In the order of the exercises which the commit- tee have arranged for this day's work among us, I am impressed that each dej>artment illustrates well some grand historic fact, or enunciates some underlieing principle which has built and which must conserve this Republic. You will have observed that the celebration began by a mili- tary and civic procession which, after winding through some of the principal streets of the city, brought up at the venerable " meeting house," which is older than the nation, and has stood all these years blessing the people, and there combined with the services of religion and the reading of the Declaration of Inde- pendence and the address of eloquence. "What better picture of the state of things one hundred years ago, when stirred with eloquence as the fire of patriotism burned bright and aU consuming, men rushed to their altars for divine guidance, and then to their implements of war, to conquer or die. " A civic and military procession !" just that was the army of the Revolution springing up from field and workshop and all trades and professions wherever a hero might be found and the ORATOIN REV. JEREMIAH TAYLOR. 469 sacred cause moved him. Next in order to-day came the grand Trades Procession ; symbolizing the prosperity of the country during a century of life and industry, and what nation under the whole heaven, can exhibit such a growth in a century as we do to-day, in all these things which constitute the strength and glory of a free people ? The third act in the scene of this pageantry is the one passing here, in which the children and the youth are so largely repre- sented ; from whose ranks are to arise the men and the women of the future. Yes, here we stand in the presence of the nation that is to be. There is a meaning, too, in the regatta appointed for the silent hours of incoming evening upon the quiet waters of the Seekonk. That old stream that has played so important a part in ages gone as well as now ; that yielded her bosom just as readily when furrowed by the canoe of the red man be- fore civilized lif e began, as now it endures all the wantoness and sport of the trained sons of Brown. For shall we not see in the struggles of the boat race the intensified energy and stimulated purpose exemplified which must constitute the warp and woof in the great business hfe of the future ? That nation only has a future among the centuries that shall be worthy of record, which employs ah her skill and well-directed enterprise to keep fully abreast of all the questions that bear upon human weal, and, when rightly solved, bless mankind to the last degree. "We want the bone, the muscle, the sinew ca- pable of hardly endurance, not less than the well-trained thought and sterling virtue for future use. The old Republic, weakened by effeminacy, perished. May God save us from such an un- honored grave ! It will be seen then from this run along the line of the pro- cession that the morning service had a more special reference to the past ; was largely puritanic while this of the afternoon and evening contemplate the future, and are mainly prophetic. Let us catch the inspiration that ought to move us even here and now. I have said this service is future in its bearings. But lest the muse of history should turn away in sorrow, stop a moment before we proceed with that idea. Let us not forget this place is hallowed ground. Go up into the old house which 470 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. has crowned the brow of the hill for the century past, and which has just been " fixed up" for the century to come. Then walk down to the well of whose pure waters, the Williams family drank from generation to generation, and which when mixed with tea gave such zest to the evening' hours in the life of Betsey, to whose noble benefaction it is due we are here in such joyous mood, feeling that we are part owners of these twenty acres, if we hold not a foot of soil outside the Park. Then pass down into the sacred enclosure where the " forefathers of the hamlet sleep," and read the quaintly lettered story of their life and death. We are sorry that you cannot look upon the face of old Roger himself, the patron saint of all these domaius, and whose statue with a face as he ought to have looked when living, will one day appear ready to defy the storms of the open heavens as they may here sweep over the plain. But in the absence of that costly embellishment, walk across yon rustic bridge where you will find the apple tree and Roger Williams in it. But to our theme, — With these children from our public schools, and you, Mr. President representing the Board of Education, before me, how natural to say a few things in regard to education and government. And thus we shall see what the children must be and do to render the future grand — enduring. I have just read the story of the ' Blue-eyed Boy," who peered through the key- hole into the Hall of Independence, saw the venerable men sign the Declaration of Independence, then of his own accord shouted to the bellman to ring forth the joyful tidings, then leaping upon the back of his pony, self-appointed, rode night and day to the camp of General Washington, located in New York, and communicated to him what had been done in Congress, and this two days before the commander-in-chief received his dis- patches from the proper authorities. Like that patriotic, heroic boy, we want the children of to-day to herald down the coming ages the great facts and principles of our nation's life and glory. How can they do it? We have planted our centennial tree ; whether it survives and flourishes, or dies after a few months, depends upon certain established laws in nature. Soil, climate, sunshine and storm are to tell in the one direction or the other. The Republic of ORATION — REV. JEREMIAH TAYLOR. 471 of the United States, which to-day wears a matronly brow and bears the wreath of a century, is to abide in honor and flourish in prosperity, or to perish from being a nation under the opera- tion of laws no less fixed and obvious. We are probably now passing through the test period of our existence. We have seen the sword cannot devour. The world knows, we know, that our arm of power is strong in defence and protection. The adverse elements which, during the century gone, have at times appeared so fierce and destructive, have only reduced elements of strength. Prosperity is often more danger- ous than adversity. When Moab could not conquer ancient Israel on the field of battle, she did so spread her net of entice- ment as to deco}' and imperil her. If we have come through the scourge of the sword strong, who can say that corruption and loss of public virtue shall not mark our ruin ? We must educate the young aright, if we are to conserve what we have re- ceived and now hold. It has been said, " the chief concern of a State is the education of her children.'' As a prime element in this education, we have need to inculcate American ideas of government. This may be quite easy to do with tbat portion of the young that are born here, and whose blood is Anglo Saxon ; without other ingredients, the blood and the birth place both have an important bearing. The Englishman, reared on the other side of the Atlantic, does not easily compre- hend the genius of our free institutions, and there noticeably are duller scholars still. The government here is through the people, and of course belongs to the people. I am a part of the nation, and am to my measure of ability responsible for what the national life is. This idea of being a factor in the Republic becomes one of the most potent influences for good ; one of the most powerful educators in the land. It was this idea that brought to the field of battle such vast armies to save the government in its last scene of danger, and rendered them so tractable, wise, enduring, brave, where no standing armies exist- ed before. Now whether a man came from China or Ireland, Japan or Germany, the north pole or the south pole, let him un- derstand at the earliest possible period, that he is one of us and owes allegiance to no government but what he helps to consti- 472 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. tute. It has been said many a time, that the English debt makes the English government strong — because so many of the people are creditors. Our own government in the late war made the people largely its creditors for a like reason. But the bond of our union is deeper, broader than this, more binding, more sure. It is this, that not only the money is ours, but the honor and prosperity, and the very being of the nation belongs to the people. And allow me to say that our system of popular edu- cation is one of the best agencies that can be employed to incul- cate, foster and strengthen this idea. Every school in our land made up of a distinct nationality, on a fundamental principle of religion or politics, is fostering a spirit anti-Republican, and fraught with evil to our free institutions. If any people are so purblind as not to see that we offer to them through our public institutions better educational oppor- tunities than they can transplant here from the Old World, then we beg they will abide under their own vine and fig tree and leave to us and ours what we so highly prize, and propose to per- petuate. We shall not submit to any foreign domination, whe- ther it be political or ecclesiastical. There will naturally be connected with this American idea of government, as a second educational element, patriotic fervor. One of the weakest things in the old Ottoman power so shaken just now that indicates its near ruin is a lack of patriotism. Such an emotion as love of country is not found there. The Turk may fight because he is forced to, not because his home, family and native land are dearer to him than life. It was this patriotic fervor that brought our nation into being, and this must be an important instrumentality in its continu- ance. Read the closing sentence in that immortal document^ which one hundred years ago this very day so fired and nerved the people in their great struggle for liberty: "And for the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other onr lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." Those words were no mere rhetorical flourish, when published. They included all the language could express, and infinitely more than such a de- claration ever contained before. ORATION REV. JEREMIAH TAYLOR. 473 It may be quite easy to frame resolutions and give pledges in times of peace ; but the hour when the framers of the Declara- tion of Independence spoke so boldly and meaningly was when war was at the door and the hand of a most powerful nation was upon the throat of her feebler Colonies. To pledge life, property, sacred honor then was to have them put in immediate requisition for the imperilled cause. It meant, as Benjamin Franklin said to John Hancock, as he wrote his bold name and remarked, " We must all hang togeth- er. Yes, we must indeed hang together, or else, most as- J suredly, we shall all hang separately." That high-toned senti^ ment, fearlessly uttered was sustained by sacrifice and intense endurance. Republics are made of youth and let there arise generation after generation of youth, so infused, men of such devotion to the good of the country, and we are safe for the cen- turyto come, for all future years while the world standeth ; for : " Our country first, their glory and their pride, Land of their hopes, land where their fathers died, When in the right they'll keep her honor bright, Wherein the wrong they'll die to set it right." It was a painful feature of our American life made prominent before the late rebellion, that so many eminent in positions at home, or travelling abroad, affected to despise their birth -right, were ashamed of their country. They claimed to be English rather than Americans, when in foreign lands. And when here on our soil, fostered, honored, had nothing of the national life and spirit about them. In such an ignoble spirit the rebellion was matured. They were ever decrying their home blessings, and extolling the beauty and bounty of institutions far away. We are thankful that spirit, so vain and silly, so unnatural and obsequious, has been so thoroughly flogged out of the nation. I do not think so big a fool can be found in the entire land, in this day of grace, July 4, 1876, as a man who chanced to be born in our famed country, wishing the lines of life in the beginning had fallen to him in some other place. American citizenship has passed the period of reproach. It challenges the homage of the world. It is set in gems of beauty. It is royal diadem. In studying the character of the men who became the found- 4T4 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. ers and framers of this Republic, we find they were distinguish- ed for sterling integrity, and so we must see to it that the young, rising up around us, are possessed of the same element of character, if our institutions are to be perpetuated. What we want to-day in our country is men who can be trusted. They are here, no doubt, and will appear and take their place when called for. Gold is good, and we want that, but men more. We have had a decade of sordid sentiment and base practice. Such a state of things is not unusual after a season of war. Competition was widespread after the Revolution. The vile mercenary spirit has invaded all departments of life and influences. The greed of gain, inflamed by a desire for personal gratification, has been too strong for the ordinary bar- riers of virtue and fair dealing, and what wrecks of character, fortune and life even have appeared as a consequence upon the surface of society. Men who have become insane through lust and gain scruple not at the use of any means which may ac- complish their purpose. And so we distrust one another, and wonder if we shall find at the Centennial Exhibition even that noblest work of God, " an honest man." It is thought by many that the evil is self-corrective, that the appalling depths of in- iquity which have been revealed will frighten and compel a hasty retreat on the part of those who have ventured on the per- ilous extreme. That is not the ordinary law of reform. Reek- ing corruption does not of itself become a scene of sweetness and beauty. Let us trust in no such vain hope. Rather let the education of the young be the source of cheerful expectation. Train up the children in the ways of integrity. Let it be en- graven upon their hearts in the deep-bedded fines of inefface- able conviction, that righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness, than he that is perverse in his ways though he be rich. " 111 fares the land to baat'ning ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay." Another important lesson to be taught our youth is that wealth is not the end, but the means, and so our life ought to be one of well-appointed industry and careful husbandly, whether we be rich or poor. ORATION* BEV. JKUKM1AU TAYLOR. 415 Harriet Martineau, who has just died at her home in Eng- land, after traveling through this country and observing the working of our free institutions, recorded as her deliberate opin- ion that no calamity could befall an American youth more se- rious in results than to inherit a large patrimony. The idea has been so wide spread, that if a man has riches he has attained already the chief end of his being, that an over- indulged, useless life, is almost a sure concomitant of inherited wealth ; more diligence, less extravagance, should bo the watch- words with which to start on the new century. With the very fair show which the benevolent department of the country may make as to-day she unrolls her record of church work at home and abroad, her educational work, with endowed colleges and public libraries, her charities to the poor and the unfortunate, it must yet be apparent that as a people we have not learned how to use wealth aright. The great industries of the land are depressed. The hands of the laborer are seeking in vain for something to do, and the rich are becoming poor, as a consequence of the recklessness of habits in the modes of earning and spending in the past. The S-trne is true of a liberal education, as of wealth. The youth who, blessed with opportunities for a higher education, must be made to feel that they are carried through the schools, not to be drones in society, fancy men, but that they may contribute to the wisdom, integrity and every virtue in the high places of state and nation. It is sometimes said that higher education unfits some for business. Send a boy to college and he is good for nothing except in the learned professions. " If this be so, then our educational system needs reorganizing." The old maxim that knowledge is power, is true, -and broad as true. A man will be better fitted to fill any occupation in life for a higher edu- cation, if he has been educated aright. Out upon any other theory. Let the people everywhere be made to feel this, as the graduates do honor to their privileges, by meeting the just claim that society has upon them and the questions about graded schools and free colleges will fail to be discussed for want of an opponent. 416 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Our country offers the highest prize for every virtue, all trained talent. It is base, it is mean, it is contemptible, not to be true, noble and good when the way to ascend is so easy ; where the people are so ready to crown, and honor him who deserves to wear a crown, and when our free institutions are so deser- ving of all the support and praise we can bring them. One word more. This has been a Christian nation during the century past. The great principles of divine truth have been wrought into the foundations and abide in the structure. The word of God has been our sheet anchor in the past ; it must be so in the future. Some one has said " Republicanism and freedom are but mere names for beautiful but impossible abstractions, except in the case of a Christainly, educated people. Keep this thought in the minds of the young, in all their course of education, and they will rise up to bless the land, and possess her fair and large domain. It was De Tocqueville who said, " He who survives the freedom and dignity of his country, has already lived too long." May none before us, or in the generations following, live thus long. Our Republic to the end of time. FROVIDENOE, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. ORATION BY HON. SAMUEL G. ARNOLD. DELIVERED AT PROVIDENCE, E. I., JULY 4tH, 1876. To trace the causes that led to the American Revolution, to narrate the events of the struggle for independence, or to con- sider the effect which the establishment of " the great Repub- lic " has had upon the fortunes of the race in other lands — these have been the usual and appropriate themes for discourse upon each return of our national anniversary. And where can we find more exalted or more exalting subjects for reflection ? It is not the deed of a day, the events of a year, the changes of a century, that explain the condition of a nation. Else we might date from the 4th of July, 1776, the rise of the American people, and so far as we as a nation are concerned, we might disregard all prior history as completely as we do the years be- yond the flood. But this we cannot do, for the primitive Briton, the resistless Roman, the invading Dane, the usurping Saxon, the conquering Norman, have all left their separate and distinguishable stamp upon the England of to-day. As from Coedmon to Chaucer, from Spenser to Shakspeare, from Milton to Macaulay, we trace the progress of our language and litera- ture from the unintelligible Saxon to the English of our time ; so the development of political ideas has its great eras, chiefly written in blood. From the fall of Boadicea to the landing of Hengist, from the death of Harold to the triumph at Runny- mede, from the wars of the Roses to the rise of the Reforma- tion, from the fields of Edgehill and Worcester, through the restoration and expulsion of the Stuarts down to tltm days of George III, we may trace the steady advance of those nations of society and of government which culminated in the act of an American Congress a century ago proclaiming us a united and independent people. When the barons of John assembled on that little islet in the Thames to wrest from their reluctant king 478 OtTtt NATIONAL JTTBILEE. the right of Magna Charta, there were the same spirit, and the same purpose that prevailed nearly six centuries after in the Congress at Philadelphia, and the actors were the same in blood and lineage. The charging cry at Dunbar, " Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered," rang out a hundred and twenty-five years later from another Puritan camp on Bunker Hill. So history repeats itself in the ever-recurring conflict of ideas, with the difference of time, and place and people, and with this further difference in the result, that while in ancient times the principal characters in the historic drama were the conqueror, the conquered and the victim, these in modern days become the oppressor, the oppressed and the deliverer. Charles Stuart falls beneath Cromwell and Ireton, George III yields to "Washington and Greene, serfdom and slavery vanish before Romanoff and Lincoln. But we must turn from this wide field of history to one of narrower limits, to one so small that it seems insignificant to that class of minds which measures States only by tbe acre, as cloth by the yard ; to those men who, to be consistent, should consider Daniel Lambert a greater man than Napoleon Bona- parte, or the continent of Africa a richer possession than Athens in the days of Pericles. There are many just such men, and the materialistic tendency of our times is adding to their number. It is in vain to remind them that from one of the smallest States of antiquity arose the philosophy and the art that rule the world to-day, Judea should have been an em- pire and Bethlehem a Babylon to impress such minds with the grandeur of Hebrew poetry or the sublimity of Christian faith. But for those to whom ideas are more than acres, men greater than machinery, and moral worth a mightier influence than material wealth, there is a lesson to be learned from the sub- ject to which the Act of Congress and the Resolutions of the General Assembly limit this discourse. And since what is homely and familiar sometimes receives a higher appreciation from being recognized abroad, hear what the historian of Ameri- ca has said of our little Commonwealth (1), that "had the territory of the State corresponded to the importance and sin- gularity of the principles of its early existence, the world 0BATI0N SAMUEL G. ARNOLD. 470 would have been filled with wonder at the phenomena of its history." Hear too a less familiar voice from beyond the sea, a German writer of the philosophy of history. Reciting the principles of Roger Williams, their successful establishment in Rhode Island, and their subsequent triumph, he says: " They have given laws to one quarter of the globe, and dreaded for their moral influence, they stand in the background of every demo- cratic struggle in Europe." (2) It is of our ancestors, people of Providence, that these words were written, and of them and their descendants that I am called to speak. To condense two hundred and forty years of history within an hour is simply impossible. We can only touch upon a few salient points, and illustrate the progress of Providence by a very few striking statistics. Passing over the disputed causes which led to the banishment of Roger Williams from Massachusetts, we come to the undisputed fact that there existed, at that time, a close alliance between the church and the State in the colony whence he fled, and that he severed that unioa at once and for- ever in the city which he founded. Poets had dreamed and philosophers had fancied a state of society where men were free and thought was untrammelled. Sir Thomas More and Sir Philip Sydney had written of such things. Utopias and Arca- dias had their place in literature, but nowhere on the broad earth had these ideas assumed a practical form till the father of Providence, the founder of Rhode Island, transferred them from the field of fiction to the domain of fact, and changed them from an improbable fancy to a positive law. It was a trans- formation in politics — the science of applied philosophy — more complete than that by which Bacon overthrew the system of Aristotle. It was a revolution, the greatest that in the latter days had yet been seen. From out this modern Nazareth, whence no good thing could come, arose a light to enlighten the world. The " Great Apostle of Religious Freedom " here first truly interpreted to thosa who sat in darkness the teach- ings of his mighty Master. The independence of the mind had had its assertors, the freedom of the soul here found its cham- pion. We begin then at the settlement of this city, with an 480 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. idea that was novel and startling, even amid the philosophical speculations of the seventeenth century, a great original ieace, confirmed unity and established liberty — for, of a truth, hitherto hath the Lord helped us. THE CHARACTER OF THE EARLY SETTLERS OF VERMONT-ITS INFLUENCE UPON POSTERITY. AN ORATION BY HON. LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN. DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT BURLINGTON, VT., JULY 4th, 1876. Mr. President and Citizens of Chittenden County : — An apology seems out of place on such an occasion as the present. But I must excuse myself for the disappointment I am about to cause you, of which I gave your committee timely warning. From their vote and from the published accounts of the pre- parations for the centennial celebrations throughout the coun- try you had the right to expect from me an address which should present the principal events of the last hundred years in your county in their proper historical succession, in accord- ance with the suggestion of the President of the United States and of the proprieties of the occasion. Such an address I can- not give you for several reasons. I shall mention only one. Had I been equal to the labor of gathering the facts — of col- lating and compressing them within the brief hour here al- lowed me — I should then have threshed a harvest which has been gathered by others ; I should have opened no new field of enquiry, contributed no new fact to the sum of historical knowledge. For be it known that among the other treasures which you have preserved are all the materials for a history of your county, and every township it comprises. So thoroughly has the field been gleaned, that no sheaf has been left for me. That ct ntennial orator who shall stand here after another hun- dred years will find ready to his hand every fact, circumstance and particular in the history of Chittenden county for the first hundred years which I could have gathered had my time and industry both been unlimited. He will then, I hope, find in every township a public library, such as you have in this city. Iu each of them there will be new editions of the histories of 500 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Williams, Allen, Hoskins, Thompson, the two Halls, and that wonderful repository of fact and incident, the " Vermont His- torical Gazetteer." After he has exhausted these he will never think of hunting in the obscurity of the past for any poor address of mine. I think earnest students of the early history of Vermont will find one inquiry difficult to answer. It is this : How was it possible that a few scattered settlers, deficient in resources and poor in purse, could accomplish the results which they did ac- complish '? In 1774 they numbered scarcely more than 1,500 families. They were dispersed from the Winooski and the Great Bend of the Connecticut to the Massachusetts line. They had no means of assessing taxes, no organization which was not purely voluntary. They had already maintained them- selves against the Power of New York through a struggle of nearly ten years. They sprang to arms at the summons of re- volution. They captured Ticonderago, raised a regiment which made the name of Green Mountain Boys historical, joined in the invasion of Canada, saved the remnant's of Wooster's army, and barred their long frontier against invasion. Relieved for a space from arms, they came into convention to form a con- stitution. The news of Burgoyne's invasion and St. Clair's retreat, arrested their deliberations. Again they hurried to the frontier, fought the battle of Bennington, raised another regi- ment and paid its expenses out of Tory property. Again they kept an invading army idle for many months which almost out- numbered their population, and sent them back to the place from whence they came. Once more we find them in conven- tion at Windsor, finishing the first constitution, the most demo- cratic, free and just ever yet adopted in any American State. They adopted it without even the form of a vote, and having launched the independent State of Vermont in defiance of New York, New Hampshire, King George, and I might say of all the evil powers of earth and air, they entered upon that singular struggle with Congress and the other States, which did not end until 1791, when all opposition worn out or overcome, Vermont took her seat at the national board in a Federal Union. Such is a mere outline of their work. Its details are supplied ORATION LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN. GO I by history. "Where upon all the earth shall we find any like number of men with the ability to plan, the courage to execute, such an enterprise as they carried out ? Surely it will be to our advantage if we can find out the causes of their success. In those causes we may find the secrets of some of our failures. I propose to examine some of these causes, to set before you a few of the prominent traits in the character of our ancestors, through which they secured the inheritance now enjoyed by a fortunate posterity. The subject upon which I shall attempt to address you will be " The Conditions of Success in Civil and Military Life in Vermont One Hundred Years Ago." Looking back now to the work of our fathers, the first great fact that meets the eye is the ability and skill with which they appropriated individual resources to the common good. They never wasted a useful man. They knew how to utilize each other. They improved not only every natural quality or acquir- ed ability, but even personal defects and peculiarities for the cause of the people. In this respect they were far wiser than their posterity, and herein, beyond doubt, lay one of the great secrets of their power. They understood the value of union, of united action everywhere, in the family, the community, the township and the state. "What union did for them we shall see. A pyramid of granite block with no cementing material topples down. You may build a tower of willows and so bind them to- gether that an earthquake will not overthrow it. Unite a peo- ple perfectly and no blow struck from without can injure them, no external enemy overcome them. The power of Spain has not sufficed to suppress an insurrection in a single province of Cuba. Unite the people of the island as Vermonters were united and they might defy the armies and navies of the world. We cannot organize success because of individual peculiari- ties. A. and B. are both strong men, but they are so unlike that they repel each other. Bring them in contact and they will fight. Look now at the men whose characters < >ur fathers could assimilate, whose diversities they could make an element of strength. Let us name a few of the leaders, who resembled each other in one respect only — they were all patriots. 502 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. There was Etlian Allen, a man of giant frame and iron mus- cle, in manner rough, but in soul as gentle as a woman, impa- tient of restraint, intolerant of opposition, his mind undiscip- lined and in constant revolt against all control, human or Divine. Ira Allen, his brother, a born diplomatist, smooth and pol- ished in address, equally skilled in concealing his own thoughts and in discovering those of others. Seth Warner, the soldier, open and generous, into whose soul jealousy or vice of any kind could find no by way to enter, the Bayard of Vermont, without fear and without reproach. Their First Governor, a plain, simple farmer, but shrewd and far-sighted, whom men could take into their confidence in spite of themselves, whose rule of life it was to make the best of every body, because, to use a rather Irish expression, which he applied daily, " he knew they always turned out better than he thought they would." The two Fays, Jonas and Joseph, masters of the caucus, so systematic that no convention could be held regular that had not a Fay for its secretary. The Robinsons, negotiators, pioneers in all missions to other States and powers. Nathanial and Daniel Chipman, educated trained lawyers, slightly aristocratic, faithful servants of the church by law established. Stephen R. Bradley, a democrat by nature, the best political writer of his time. Ebenezer Allen, who could not write a sentence correctly, but who could and did write the first American Emancipation proclamation. Remember Baker, who always doubted which he hated most, a Yorker, a Tory, or an Indian. Cochran, a hunter and guide, a philosopher and a patriot — and I might name a score of others, but these will serve to make leaders enough for all our political parties, for as many sects as ever opposed the Pope— so unlike each other in all things, that you would not suppose they could have sprung from the same race. Had they been like ourselves, they would have all been leaders, but each would have led a dif- ferent party. We have to go deeper to find their points of unity. They all came from that iron-souled race of thinkers, who, early in ORATION LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN. 503 17th century, burst the fetters of the Church and State, and shook the centres of monarchy to their bases with the proposi- tion, that the powers of government were derived from the people, should be employed for the benefit of the people, that any system of religion which taught the contrary was no true system or religion. For this faith they might be and were broken on the wheel, but from it they would not turn. They were Republicans in religion and in politics. Emigrating from Europe into the free air of this Western World, these prin- ciples became a part of themselves, their descendants carried them into Western Connecticut and Massachusetts, and from thence into this wilderness, where they confronted all the dan- gers and deprivations of a new settlement. They were patriots by birth, by growth and by education. However much they might differ in other affairs, they were all agreed that they would not tolerate any invasion of their rights of person or property. That was tyranny, and tyranny was to be resisted to the death. They were taught by their fathers — their lives were perpetual illustrations of the necessity of united action. In their case division was destruction — union, perfect union of opinion, re- sources, characters and powers alone could preserve them. I now ask your attention to some of the consequences to the person and the community of this Common unity of action and opinion, amoug those men, who differed so widely among them- selves. I need not remind you that in their time the telegraph, the railway and the steamboat had not been invented. There was scarcely a highway upon the Grants. Men went from place to place on foot or on horseback, following Indian trails or lines marked trees. You will scarcely credit the assertion that under such circumstances the full effective strength of the new settle- ment could be mustered at any given point with nearly as much celerity as now. The statement is almost incredible, but you will hear my proofs before you reject it. I take them from his- tory. It was on the 4th of May, 1775, when Allen summoned his first men to march upon Ticonderoga. He lost a full day waiting for boats on the shore of the lake, and even then cap- tured the fort in the morning twylight of May 10th. There was then a block house near the north end of the bridge at 501 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Winooski. It was called Fort Frederic, garrisoned by men en- gaged in surveying or clearing the intervales above. They were under the command of Remember Baker. In some way, Allen's summons reached Baker in time to enable him to call in his men, equip them, embark them on a flat-boat, sail down the river to its mouth, row or sail up the lake, capture a boat filled with escaping British soldiers, on the way to Canada, and to reach Crown Point in time to take part in the capture of that fort, before noon of the 1 Oth of May. Could you do much better now? I find the fact also recorded that in the winter of 1776, an express from Albany brought the news to Bennington that Sir John Johnson, with five huudred Tories and a body of Indians, was marching upon Tyron County, then at the eve of insurrec- tion. The Yorkers — the people who had kidnapped Baker, and declared Allen an outlaw — implored the Green Mountain boys to help them. Did they arswer, you are the men who, with strong hand, without right, for more than years have been striving to rob us of our homes ? No ! no ! "Within twelve hours after the news reached the Grants, that more than ninety Green Mountain boys, armed, equipped and provisioned, were on the march, and every one of these Vermonters was furnished by a single town. They joined Schuyler, marched to Johnstown, and received the surrender of the invading force. David Wooster, a captain in the French war, had a New York grant of lands in the town of Addison, in 1761, the Vermonters who had expelled Col. Reid from the meadows of the Otter Creek, found Wooster serving writs on the settlers of the lauds he claimed. They tied him and his sheriff to a tree, threatened them with the Beech seal, and released them only when they had withdrawn then* writs, and promised to go and sin no more. We next hear of Wooster in midwinter of 1776. Montgomery has fallen. Wooster is in command of a defeated and dispirited army below Montreal, and the smallpox h epidemic among the frozen, starved and wounded patriots, who have traversed the wilds of Maine only to be defeated before Quebec. They are surrounded by an enemy twice their number. He is writing to OIUTOIN LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN. 505 Col. Warner. "Oar prospect is dubious,'' he says. "I have sent to General Schuyler, Gen. Washington and to Congress * * * but you know how long it will be before we can have re- lief from them. You and the valiant Green Mountain Corps are in our neighborhood. * * * You all have arms and ever stand ready to lend a helping hand to your brother in distress." Had I time I would read the whole of this touching letter. He implores Warner to send him help, " Let the men set out at once * * * * by tens, twenties, thirties or fifties. It will have a good effect on the Canadians. 1 am confident I shall see you here with your' men in a very short time." This letter was written near Montreal on the 6th of January, and on the 22nd, only 16 days later, Schuyler withdrew his re- quest upou Washington for reinforcements, because, as he said, Warner had been so successful in sending men to Wooster's aid. Again the courage and celerity of the Vermonters saved the army. They formed Wooster's rear guard, standing like a wall between him and his pursuers, and fought all the way from the St. Lawrence to the Islands of Lake Champlain. Nor did they relax their watchful care until June, when the last weary, wounded soldier of that army was safely sheltered within the walls of Ticonderoga. I could give many other illustrations of their promptness in marching to protect a friend or destroy an enemy. Let us now note their conduct in a difficult emergency. The embryo State never passed through a darker period than that between the advance of Burgoyne and the battle of Benn- ington. The retreat of St. Clair left the whole western frontier unprotected. Burgoyne scattered his proclamations, setting forth his own strength and offering protection to all who would abandon the patriot cause. All the provisions brought to his camp would be paid for in gold. The defection was frightful. Every wavering man accepted his offers. Even one member of the council, to his eternal disgrace be it said, deserted. The peo- ple were poor. They had no money or credit. Alarm and con- fusion everywhere prevailed. A volunteer force must be raised, armed, fed and clothed, or the contest in this quarter was ended. How could it be done ? 50 () OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. But there was a little band of men known as the Council of Safety which was neither discouraged nor dismayed. They took account of their resources as coolly as a few weeks before they had discussed the provisions of the new constitution. The prime necessity of the moment was to raise an adequate force of volunteers, and put a stop to these desertions. Both objects were accomplished by a single resolution, conceived, adopted, and its execution provided for in a single session. Ira Allen, then a statesman 26 years old, was its author. It provided for a committee of sequestration, with power to con- fiscate the estates of the Tories and out of the proceeds raise and pay the voluteers. It stopped desertions instantly. Vol- unteers promptly came forward. This resolution was the first and a most fatal blow struck at the army of Burgoyne. Let me now call your attention to an illustration of the prac- tical common sense which appears to have controlled the actions of our ancestors. I refer you to their first convention to frame a constitution. It convened at Windsor in July, 1777. Half its members came direct from their regiments to the conven- tion. Burgoyne was approaching with an army which twice outnumbered all the men on the Grants able to bear arms. Congress had just declared that the idea of forming a new State here was in substance derogatory to that body and a violation of the rights of New York. Cool and undismayed the delegates met in convention. Ira Allen has written that " the business being new and of great consequeiice required serious deliberation." No doubt of that. A draft of the constitution was presented, by wkoni prepared we do not know. They examined it section by section. In the midst of the debate an express arrived with news of St. Clair's retreat before Burgoyne. The families of the President and many of. the members were exposed to the hireling and the savages in his train. Their first impulse was to adjourn and hasten to the defence of their homes. Just then a sudden July storm arose, which their venerable chaplain declared was an indication of the Almighty's will that the constitution should be adopted then and there, and while awaiting its cessation, in the very conflict of the element, the darkened hall illuminated ORATION — LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN. 507 by the flashes of the lightning, they formed a State. The con- stifcution was read through and virtually adopted. A vote ap- pointing the Committee of Safety followed, an adjournment to December, the storm passed over, and within two hours of the arrival of the express the members were on their way to defend their families and their firesides. They came together again in December, stirring events had happened meantime in which they had been actors. The bat- tles of Bennington and Hubbardton had been fought ; Bur- goyne had surrendered, Ticonderoga had been retaken, the frontier had been cleared of the invador, and many of the vol- unteers had returned to their homes. The convention finished its work without delay. They adopted a preamble and ratified the constitution. They decided that it was not expedient to submit their work to a popular vote. They named the 12 th of March for their first election, and sent Ira Allen to Connecticut to have the constitution printed, "We must not assume that wide differences of opinion did not exist among the members of that body in respect of the govern- ment they were about establishing. Wide and honest differen- ces did exist — which probably then could not have been satis- factorily adjusted. I make this reference for the single purpose of showing the wisdom which these plain men displayed in deal- ing with these questions. To-day such questions would be wrangled over in convention, fiercely debated by the press, and after months of acrimonious discussion decided to the satisfac- tion not of the people, but of a party. Our fathers recognized the necessity of some kind of a gov- ernment, established it, and postponed their differences until it had been submitted to the test of experience. Instead of mak- ing a permanent Constitution, to be changed only by the weary processes adopted in other States, they provided«for a conven- tion to recommend changes every seven years. This provision satisfied everybody. It originated your council of censors, and furnished what experience has shown to be the very best me- thod of amending a constitution. There was a wise purpose in the omission to submit the ques- tion to a popular vote. Vermont was surrounded by watchful 508 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. enemies. Congress had just denounced the project of a separate State. New York was using every artifice to divide and dis- tract the people. New Hampshire was intent on the same pur- pose. It was doubtful whether the popular vote would then have given a majority for any constitution. The convention es- caped the danger by not submitting it, and their constituents ratified their decision. I hold this original constitution, as printed in Hartford, in my hand. In view of the circumstances in which it was made it is a remarkable document. I might well have made it, as I first intended, the exclusive subject of my address to-day, for I de- clare without reservation that it is in my judgement the wisest, the most liberal, the best State paper to be found in American constitutional history. I can only use it now as an illustration of the wisdom, the patriotism and the unselfish motives which controlled the men who gave it to their posterity. Let me cite an example of the promptness with which these men in a critical emergency took into their confidence a stranger to their councils, and the very leader of the opposition, when his peculiar ability was required to extricate the State from danger. The negotiations with the British commander, in Canada, which so long protected the state from invasion and kept an army idle, were known to but few of the leaders of the Vermont" ers. Had they been made public these leaders would have lost the public confidence and the British must have overrun the State. The object of Haldimand, the British commander, was to make a separate treaty with the Vermonters, by which the State should be placed under British protection. Ira Allen and Dr. Fay, acting for the Vermonters, insisted that time was necessary to bring the leaders to their views. With this pretext the}* kept Haldimand quiet through the spring and summer of 1781 5 but the Legislature was to meet in October, and Haldimand in- sisted that the matter should then be closed and made public. He would wait no longer. Early in the autumn he sent a pow- erful army, under St. Leger, up the lake to Crown Point, to threaten the Grants, encourage the Tories, ready to issue his OR ATIOX — LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN. 509 proclamation at the proper moment. An accident had well nigh made everything public and thrown the State into St. Leger's hands. Gen. Enos, with Cols. Fletcher and Walbridge, had a small force on the west shore of the lake. Some scouts from the two armies met, fired on each other, and one of the Vermont ser- geants was killed. To the surprise of the Vermont officers) who were not in the secret, the next day St. Leger sent the sergeant's body, with his clothing and arms, into their lines, with a note of apology for his death. Enos despatched an express, with St. Leger's note, and his own comments upon it, to the Governor, at Charlestown, where the Legislature was in session. The messenger, on his way, and at Charlestown, made the fact public that the British General had apologized for killing Sergeant Tupper. A crowd gathered, suspicions of treachery were rife, and the excitement was intense. They demanded that the dispatches brought by the messenger should be immediately made public. The situation was most critical. Had the dispatch been read, the negotiations must have been made public, and Vermont would have been lost without substantial resistance. The prudent Governor quietly announced to the excited people that the dispatches were very important, that he should have to peruse them in private, and would make them public next morning, after consulting the board of war. This satisfied the impatient multitude, and they dispersed. He called the board of war together. They were in the secret. They acted without hesitation. Then, as now, there were two parties. There was one man, and probablj only one man, who could revise hose dispatches, lay them before the people, and send them peacefully away. That man was the leader of the opposition to Chittenden and the Aliens. He was a young and able lawyer, who had recently come into the State, who sus- pected, but was not in the secret of the negotiations with the British. You might suppose they hesitated, lest he might ex- pose their plans, and advance his own party by their ruin. Not for one moment. They sent for him, laid open the whole matter, and asked his aid. And he was true as steel — swept 510 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. aside every other consideration, and applied himself to the work in hand as earnestly as if he had been responsible for all the dealing with the emeny. St. Legar's note, the dispatches from Enos and his Colonels, were placed in his hands, and he retired' The next morning these papers were read to the Legislalure and the people. There was not a word in them relating to the armistice or the negotiations with Haldiman — not a word upon suspicion could be founded. The excitement ceased. Legisla- ture and people went about their ordinary business. The fall of Cornwallis soon followed. St. Leger and his army went back to the place whence they came, and once more the infant State was out of danger. It is due to history to say that the young lawyer to whom I refer was Nathaniel Chipman. To my mind there is a nobility in this high confidence be- tween opposing party leaders in the integrity of each other which takes them out of the ranks of party and raises them into the purer atmosphere of patriotism. I would also refer to some of the principles declared in this first constitution— its declaration 90 years in advance of the nation that " government is for the people, without partiality or preju- dice against any particular sect, class or denomination of men whatever" — that "all men are equally free — that no person shall be held as a slave- — that no man's religious opinions can be controlled by law- — that affirms the right to bear arms — the right to trial by jury— th- right to hold papers and property sacred from the grasp of the bailiff or the ferret eyes of the detective— that it is the duty of every man to have some pro- fession, trade or farm — that public services deserves compen- sation, but to where the profit s of an office lead many to apply for it they ought to be lessened by the Legislature" — principles for which we have substituted the pernicious doctrines that public office is official spoil, and that there is no personal right too sacred to be invaded to overthrow a political enemy. But I must not weary your patience, and my case does not require further proof. I have established, fairly I think, that thorough freedom of thought and independence of judgment, perfect unity of action in public affairs, promptness and celerity of action, justice and kindness in dealing with honest errors of ORATION — LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN. 511 a public servant, were qualities for which our ancestors were distinguished, and by the use of which they attained success. And they possessed another quality of which I ought to give you some illustrations. You may call it judicious selection, the skill which always selects the right man for a place, the choice of the fittest — or by whatever name you please. This power of selection is one of the highest which men can exercise — the test of human ability — for no man from the Great Alexander to our own great soldier, who did not possess it, was ever successful. We have a school in physics which declares that the economy of creation is based upon this principle of selection, and it has many able advocates, I have not time to cite cases. I will refer you to history for them. I will sum up the argument on this point in a single proposi- tion. Whenever they had a public duty to perform, they always selected their best man for that place, and when they had placed him there instead of engaging in petty warfare upon him, they sustained him by their counsel and advice — yes, by their fortunes and their blood. This support of their leaders is one of the noblest traits in their characters. Not more firmly and patient- ly until the going down of the sun did Aaron and Hur stay up the hands of Moses when they were heavy, than did these men sustain their leaders always, and especially in the dark and des- pondent hours, when they were most ready to sink under the weight of their burdens. I have thus given you an imperfect sketch of the leading char- acteristics of the men who founded Yermont, and whose memo- ries we delight to honor to- day. Imperfect as it is, it will sug- gest the question to you. Who are the men in our time who have shown themselves to be true heirs of these ancestral glo- ries ? Who that lives to-day is to be honored at our next cen- tennial as we honor these men ? Has human nature degenerat- ed '? Is the race of great men dead ? No ! I answer a thousand times no ! The fault is with ourselves. We have departed from the ways of our fathers. We no longer act upon the principles through which they achieved success. No one will deny that as a nation we have departed from the 512 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. faith and practice of the founders of Vermont. Not Vermonters alone— perhaps they have offended less in this respect than others — but all the people of all the States. The existing greed for office — that corrupting theory which defines office to be the sjDoil of the defeated, and the property of the successful politi- cian, the vindictive spirit of party which discovers no virtue in a political opponent, and which strikes by foul means as readily as by fair — which seems to have driven out of our political life all the characteristic traits of the statesman and the gentleman, and to have substituted in their places the vocabulary of the fish market and the morals of the gambling house ! which fills the party press with abusive attacks upon private character, and causes newspapers to reek with scandals so foul that we fear to introduce them into our dwellings — these are practices of recent invention for which we shall search in vain the history of the old- en times. That they are hurtful, that in these days the greatest danger to our Republic and its perpetuity we know right well. If I can say one word in this respect for reformation, if I can make one Vermonter adopt and practice henceforth the ancient and the better way, my time will not be wholly lost. That one of the necessary results of this diseased public opin- ion is to drive from public life a great number of our best men who ought to be there, you well know. It is a sacrifice at best for a citizen to take office, but if when he leaves it he is to be subject to inquisition his patriotism must be higher than the av- erage if it will induce him to enter public life at al!. Many are lead in consequence to despair of the Republic, for that is indeed a. gloomy condition of public affairs when bad men seek and good men will not accept public employment. "We should neither shun these fears nor entertain these anticipations. I do not be- lieve that the public men of either party have suddenly become bad and unprincipled. It is not true that we have entered upon a new era of jobbery, selfishness and fraud, which is to be corrected by the spasmodic virtue of any sect or condition of men. I speak plainly. I denounce without circumlocution or apology the slogan of corruption, peculation and dishonesty which screams out of every morning issue of many of our newspapers. It is a wrong to the name of every American OEATION — LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN. 513 citizen. Must a foreigner like Goldwin Smith remind us that our character and institutions have just been submitted to the tremendous strain of civil war, and that war always is fol- lowed by great disturbances in morals and business ? In our case, without preparation, we went from a condition of peace into the very whirl of rebellion. We suppressed it after years of fighting, and after we absorbed our mighty armies again into the pursuits of peace. We have done this with less of change, with less of danger to popular integrity than any other nation ever experienced. In proof of this statement allow me to refer to one or two periods and events in the history of the Anglo- Saxon race. I will take first that period of English history which followed the death of Queen Anne and the accession of that very fine and exemplary King, the first George, during which happened those memorable events, the expulsion of James II. and the exclusion of his heirs from the succession. In this period occurred those awful massacres, proscriptions and executions in England and Ireland, which brought the country into the very horrors of revolution. The animosity of spirit which then characterized the two great parties was never equalled before or since. Whig and Tory became personal as well as political enemies. Each made the other odius by at- tacks which touched the lowest depths of scurrility. A Tory paper was quite moderate Avhich said " to desire the Whigs to forbear lying would be unreasonable. It is their nature and they could not subsist without it." The Whigs replied with equal courtesy. The most abusive pamphlets, ribald and dis- gusting, yes the foulest caricatures were openly sold in the pub- lic streets. "The Art of Billingsgate," and " Bobberies of a Jacobite Ministry," were popular publications. Paralysis of business, universal distrust, the Mug House riots, High church mobs, stock jobbing frauds, the Mississippi schemes, the South sea bubble ; the debasement of art and literature were followed by the impeachment of an entire ministry at the head of which were Bolingbroke, nnd Ormond. The excesses of the common people against the dissenters led them to cut off the ears and tail of an ox, to tie squibs and crackers in their places, and having lighted these they drove the tortured animal into a dis- senting church and congregation. 514 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. AIJ these excesses brought in the reign of libel and of attacks on personal character similar to that we daily read, for England had then traveled for a long distance the road upon which we have just entered. There were then as T trust there are now a few men of both parties who were bold enough to denounce the extremists and to charge them with much of the responsibility for the existing corruption. Among them was Addison. Listen to his utterances on this subject in England in the year 1712 : " Would a government set an everlasting mark of their dis- pleasure upon one of those infamous writers who makes his court to them by tearing to pieces the reputation of a compet- itor, we should quickly see an end put to this race of vermin that are a scandal to government and a reproach to human nature. Such a proceeding would make a minister shine in history, and would fill all mankind with a just abhorrence of persons who should treat him unworthily, and employ against him those arms which he scorned to make use of against his enemies. "Every one who has in him either the sentiments of a Christian or a gentleman, cannot but be highly offended at this wicked and ungenerous practice, which is so much in use among us at pres- ent that it is become a kind of national crime, and distinguishes us from all the governments that lie about us. Scurrility now passes for wit — and he who can call names in the greatest vari- ety of phrases, is looked upon to have the shrewdest pen. By this means the honor of families is ruined ; the highest posts are rendered cheap and vile in the sight of the people, and the noblest virtues and most exalted parts exposed to the contempt of the vicious and the ignorant. Should a foreigner who knows nothing of our private factions, or one who is to act his part in the world when our animosities are forgot, should any such a one form to himself a notion of the greatest men of all sides in the British nation, who are now living, from the characters which are given them in some or other of these abominable writings, which are daily published among us, what a nation of monsters we should appear." Is it not remarkable that when in this country there is for the first time in our history an excited and angry fear of corruption ORATION — LUCIUS E. CHITTEXDEK 515 in public life, the press and people of England should gloat over what they profess to consider our downfall, and hold up to view their own purity ? Whatever others may say, England is the last country to attack any other on the ground of the immoral- ity of its government or the corruptions of its public men. For every instance of a corrupt American, in which corruption was proven, or even feared, a score of worse cases in England may be produced. Do they charge Americans with the use of money in legislation, they may find a precedent in their own Parlia- ment, when the Speaker distributed the money and bought Parliamentary votes enough to carry through a treaty. But it is undignified to pursue the parallel. I unite with the whole American people in denouncing corruption under all its many forms ; I regret that we must admit its existence among us, but with them I demand that, like any other crime, it shall be proven before I admit that it has infected the body of the peo- ple, and when they cry of party, and party injustice, shall be heard no more, and all the wrongs committed and passionate conclusions reached in time of excitement are corrected, im- partial history will say, that during all the strain to which we have been subjected in the past decade, the heart of the Amer- ican people was never infected but always pure, that the few exceptions existing only prove the rule, and that the discipline which we now go through will bring us out finally as the first great nation who passed through a mighty war, to conquest and victory, and then absorbed her military strength into her- self, leaving no permanent influence upon the public virtue or upon ancient institutions to which posterity cannot point with honor and with pride. For our future is full of hope. Has not England herself re- covered ? She was once the country of pocket purchasable boroughs, the very sinks of electoral corruption ; the capital of her aristocracy was invested in sinecure offices of honor and of profit. Once she carried measures through wholesale bribery, and once as I have shown you, private character and personal integrity counted for as little as it apparently does with us. But now there is not a country on earth more free from general scandal ; none in which private character, whether of peer or OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. peasant, statesman or private citizen, is more efficiently pro- tected. It is shielded not only by law, but by the higher law, of public opinion. True, occasionally low and scurrilous news- papers spring up, and achieves an ephemeral success by intro- ducing there the press warfare which we ought to condemn. A noted case of this sort arose out of the Tichborne trial, and there are others more recent ; but they are soon crushed be- neath the force of law and public opinion like noxous vermin. But this admonishes me to bring these desultory remarks to a close. I have fallen short of the demands of the occasion and of your just expectations. It is a great occasion. Never since the landing on Plymouth Bock has the Nation kept such a holiday. It is a great occasion for Vermont. Throughout twenty-six years our fathers toiled and labored, suffered and and bled for the right to enter the Union of the States. To-day no member has a place of higher honor. This day is welcomed throughout the nation as the greatest thanksgiving ever cele- brated. In it we cross the line of centuries and commence another period of our national existence. Looking backward or forward we discover abundant reason why we should greet this morning with a roar of rejoicing cannon, and flash upon the darkness of to-night the blaze of universal illumination. It is a high privilege to stand before the people to-day gathered in mighty audiences in a thousand places, to recall to their minds the virtues and the glories of their ancestors. It is a grand experience, surrounded by the morning glories of that century, standing before its open gate, to see spanning the entire hori- zon the bow of future promise to posterity and to humanity. Ours is a glorious heritage indeed. To learn how our fathers gained it for us is also to leam how we and our children can preserve it. It was not gained without a mighty sacrifice, it cannot be preserved without watchful care. I have sought in an imperfect way to set before you the principles by the use of which our fathers gained the liberties which we enjoy, by which they became great and their children prosperous. Let the song of thanksgiving ascend from a choir of forty million voices — let ifes theme be a country stretching from Ocean to Ocean, from the dark forests of the far Northwest, to the balmy airs ORATION LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN. 517 of tropical everglades, with its mines of gold and silver and all metals, its fertility in all that sustains human life and promotes human comfort — inhabited by an intelligent and progressive people with room enough for thrice their number. Let it giye thanks for the free constitutions under which all the people live — for their wise legislatures, for their love of education, their general industry, frugality, temperance and enterprise. Let it be said in their praise that they welcome to the protection of their flag the oppressed of every land, that no slave lives be- neath its folds, that no taint of color, no accident of birth ex- cludes any man from the highest privileges which that flag pro- tects, and let it proclaim the mighty fact that the government under which we live has now b9en tested by the heats of a century, by foreign war and domestic rebellion, by all the acci- dents and all the events which have wrecked other governments, while it has only demonstrated the strength of ours, because of that still greater and more momentous fact that the strength of our government consists in the honor, the patriotism, and the integrity of the people, and if these virtues can be preserved, our nation will endure as long as earth endures, until the fount- ains of the great deep are broken up and the elements themselves dissolve in fervent heat. A great thanksgiving of the people of a hemisphere forty millions in number is an occasion of mighty significance, when like ours it demands of all the world the recognition of the principles of popular government based upon virtue of the people. It reduces the service of political economy to a single axiom which a child can comprehend ; Preserve the virtue of the people ! Preserve the virtue of the people I ! Away with all political creeds and litanies, which re- quires philosophers to comprehend them and put them into practice. As stated in our first constitution, our government is for the common benefit, protection and security of the people, and it is built and for one century has been sustained upon the virtue and integrity of the people. Simple as this creed appears to be it imposes a duty upon every individual citizen. Because there is not now in all the nation, people more intelligent than that which I am address- ing, so there is no place where this duty is so easily performed as among such a people. 618 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Will you my friends undertake its performance, here in this Queen City and prosperous county, with all your natural and acquired advantages, your communities in which intelligence is so widely diffused. You have here, as you always should have, two political parties, each honest and earnest in its convictions. Each is represented by an enterprising newspaper. Will you gentlemen who conduct these newspapers, take care that no at- tack upon the character of an opposing candidate, no gibe or slur, no libel or coarse insinuation finds a place in your col- umns ? Will you give to your opponent credit for the same good intentions which you claim for yourselves? Tou leaders of these parties, will you be at the same time courteous gentle- men, more ready to speak kindly than coarsely of the other side ? Will you set before your humblest followers an example of purit}' in speech and dignity of deportment, not alone in caucus and convention, but in your daily life and conversation ? Will you citizens one and all remember that except within the limited range of party elections, there should be no divisions among you ? The word itself should be excluded from use. In your city and town goveruments, those little democracies in which great men have said our strength consisted, in your edu- cational systems, your internal improvements, your plans for the reformation of the young, the support of the poor, and the punishment of crime — in the control of your public libraries — in all your plans for the advancement of the people in litera- ture and the arts — in your charitable and benevolent institu- tions, will you come back to the ways of your fathers and prac- tice that unity for the results of which we give thanks this day ? In these public matters will you employ the same discretion which you use in your private affairs. Will you select the fit- test man for every station, sustain him by your advice and en- courage him by your example, with no regard to his political opinions or party connections '? How simple all these questions seem and yet how important they are to the happiness of a people. Imagine a people laboiiug in perfect union for the general good — a community from which all heart-burnings, ir- ritations, local or private jealousies, are banished, where the good qualities of each individual are recognized and made use ORATION — LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN. 51 9 of for the common good. What a factor would such a state become in the future of our country. She would send repre- sentatives to both branches of Congress, whose public and pri- vate lives would honor their State and themselves, and she would keep them there so long as they gave her faithful service, and represented a state and not a party. Her judges would keep the records of her judiciary pure while the ermine of other States is draggled in the mire of political organization. And so in every station, high or low, there would be an honest, faithful public servant laboring earnestly in the service of his employers and cordially sustained by the grateful praises of the people. Personal indejDendence of opinion, perfect unity of the people, celerity of action in public affairs careful selection of the fittest man for every office, having in view the quahties which that special office demanded, the appropriation to the public service of the best men without much regard to their opinions upon matters of private concern, charity for honest errors of judg- ment by public men, punishment with an unrelenting and mer- ciless hand of corruption and venality, swift reduction to pri- vate life of the unfaithful public officer, long service and cordial support of the faithful public servant, recognition of the value of good character in public life against assault, courtesy towards each other and personal friendship among political opponents, mutual confidence between political enemies in times of public danger, a readiness to compromise extreme opinions upon the basis of mutual concession — these, if I read the lesson of their lives correctly, were the qualities which made our fathers suc- cessful. Though few in numbers and weak in other resources, though surrounded by dangers apparently insurmountable, they were undismayed and unconquerable. Speaking through their own lives to us, their posterity, they seem to nie to recommend that we should protect our heritage and deliver it to our pos- terity by the exercise of the same virtuous qualities. It is said that in early days, when the future of Vermont was all uncertain, and enemies threaten her on every side, an Artist sketched her emblematic picture from a landscape which was spread out before him. We do not know his name, for he was 520 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. only a private soldier, whose brush was a knife point, and whose canvass was the horn that kept his powder dry. In the fore- ground of his picture stood a lofty evergreen. It was the noble pine, emblem of the bravest clan of Scottish mountains — the unconquerable McGregor. Its trunk rose naked and majestic, skyward for many fathoms, and then threw out its branches on every side. It was a model of self-reliant independence, strong to resist the whirlwind and the storm. Beneath it stood that domestic animal whose product has given celebrity to your dairies and wealth to their owners. On the right their emblem of agriculture, the plough, stood in mid-furrow ; on the left hand the acres of yellow grain attested that harvest followed seed in its appointed time. For in the background were two mountain peaks, their bases fringed by broad intervals, shadowy^ valleys and rolling hills, which suggested quiet rivers and crysta brooks. Their flanks were covered as with a garment by dark forests, and their green tinted tops soared upward until they touched fleecy clouds which floated in an atmosphere of color- less purity. Across the depression between them rolled a wave of light which, spreading outward from a central focus, cast a soft halo over the whole landscape ; out of it, over the far horizon, flashed the morning beams of the rising sun. Mountain, valley hill, plain, forest and cleared field seemed to spring into life as they were touched by the warmth of its early harvest rays. Beneath the artist wrote the word Vermont, over it the words " Freedom and Unity." He was at once historian, painter, and prophet. He gave to Art a noble design, and to a State a motto and a seal. Vermont, the State which stands to-day in the prime and strength and full vigor of political manhood, an un- challenged witness of the patriotism and wisdom of her founders, and the virtues of their descendents. To-day we stamp this seal and motto upon the closed volume of our past history, and upon the title of the book wherein her future story is to be recorded. To-day, as her united and fortunate people stand around the common altar, let them invest every feature of this symbol with fresh significancy. As long as her mountains stand, let personal independence mark all the actions of her people. Let labor, industry, economy and temperance be recognized as common ORATION -LUCIUS E. CHITTENDEN. 521 virtues. Let our children be taught the lesson of a brave and earnest loyalty to the State and to each other. Let strife and rivalry exist only in enterprises for the public good, lhen, when at the close of each coming century, her children come together as we do now to take counsel from the lives of their ancesters, and renew their resolutions for the preservation of the heritage, though other States may be whirled by the current of events toward revolution and ruin, there will be one State whose foundations only become more firm and strong as the weight of centuries settle them together— she is still the home of a free, virtuous, intelligent and brave people. Her name is Vermont, and her motto is "Freedom and Unity." THE AMERICAN AGE CONTRASTED, A CENTENNIAL ORATION BY HON. W. E. ARTHUR, DELIVERED AT THE LAYING OP THE CORNER STONE OF THE UNITED STATES BUILDING, COVINGTON, KY., JULY 4TH, 1876. The first of dramatists makes memory the warder of the brain ; and one of the first of thinkers, in ancient story, makes history philosophy teaching by example. The recurrence of this anni- versary, for the one-hundredth time, rouses the memory and en- forces the example. The heroic actors and events, in the origin of many States of renown, are obscured or colored in the shadow of fable ; the}' are often illusive images, mere mental phantasms. The heroic actors and events of republican America on the other hand, are eminently real in substance and distinct in outline. They are familiar in the emotions of popular affection — ideal- ized, — no doubt, but real ; fixed as venerated portraits of the past on the enduring canvass of history, the phenomena of their theories and of their practice still attract and instruct by their traditional presence. Indeed, their forms move, their voices speak, their eyes flash ; we feel their breath and their potential spell upon us. The great event thunders in the ear ; the heroic actors loom before the eye ; there is no mirage to obscure — no optical illusion to deceive. Their principles were founded in truth as unerring as the wisdom of creation ; and when we at- tenrpt to speak of their titanic works, measured by the visible re- sults which form the actual and the indestructable of our day, " fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful and imagination cold and barren." This warder of the brain, and this teacher of philosophy, to- day evoke the past, and now pass in review before us the memor- able actors and events of the origin of republican America. Thus we stand, in the emblematic presence of whatever is illustrious, venerated and conservative in the past, and in the noontide efful- gence of monumental trophies, which must elevate and guide us in the future. ORATION W. E. ARTHUR. 523 Standing, as we now stand, inspired by such memories, and ennobled by such realities, at such a time, and in such a pres- ence, with solemn and imposing rites, the corner-stone has been laid of a massive and costly pile, for the administration of jus- tice, the receipt of revenue and the diffusion of intelligence. It is a fitting type of the solidity of our institutions, for it is as firm as the adamantine rock from which it was hewn ; it is a fitting emblem of our Federal Union, for it is Indiana marble, supported by Kentucky soil ; it is a fitting memorial of the benevolence of our form of government, for it is to establish jus- tice, diffuse intelligence, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. In the language of Mr. Webster, we say : " Let it rise ! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming ; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit." The story of the origin and construction of our federative sys- tem, forms a link in the general development and progress of society at large. Political and personal complacency, ordinarily, on these occasions, prompt us to contemplate the events com- posing it, apart from their essential affinities in the stream of progression which rises from immutable laws ; but amid the vicissitudes which encompass every movement in the growth of the human race, the link is never broken, the affinities are never dissolved ; they are inseparably bound up with the functional mass of causes and effects which come before and follow after. Human destiny is a unit in the tendencies of human govern- ment ; man is everywhere and at all times, philosophically, the same dramatic actor in a world of vanishing forms and immu- table laws. States and nations, or other similar divisions or societies of men make, as strong as iron and as durable as brass, constitutions and compacts, institutes and codes, statutes and ordinances, and while yet they waking dream of the permanency of their statecraft, the fabric crumbles, and anon the remnants are fashioned into new forms, alike subject to like tempests of change. The political state of man is that of constitutional unrest ; his spiritual nature is dissatisfied with his human nature ; he is in a 524 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. condition of internal conflict ; lie breaks over barriers which his imperfections interpose, and pushes away from what is, to what is to come ; the march of his career is over a rough road of irri- tating impediments, but it is a forward march. He confronts and tramples upon obstacles and disasters and strides over them — now constructing, now dissolving forms — impelled by immutable laws, his course is always onward. " Empires are only sand-hills in the hour-glass of Time ; they crumble spontaneously away by the process of their own growth." " States caring not what Freedom's price may be, May late or soon, but innst at last, be free." With our construction came Great Britain's colonial dissolu- tion. The political ligament which bound us to her glorious and indomitable races was severed forever. A century has elapsed since her colonial empire was dissolved as to us, and since the federal structure of these States was founded. The corner-stone of a most complex edifice was then laid, federal, state and municipal ; and while here the " sound of the axe, hammer and tool of iron," was keeping time with the music of falling forests, the war-whoop of the red man, the hum of in- dustry, and the grand diapason of the formation of Sovereign States — " A thousand years scarce serve to form a State. An hour may lay it in the dust,— " then red havoc burst upon Europe ; land and sea shook with the thunder of bat'le ; " the earthquake voice of victory," and started Britannia, whose march is o'er the mountain- waves," and whose "home is on the deep," maintained a long, bloody and doubtful, but finally triumphant, struggle for her very name and existence among the nations of modern times. Official abuses and popular excesses kindled and debased the French Revolution of 1789. The foundations of social order were uprooted. The monarchy, founded by Clovis the First, away back in the fifdi century, memorable for thirteen hun- dred years of imperial sway, was, like potter's vessel, shivered to atoms, and swept away with the rubbish of worn out forms ; the King and Queen beheaded, and the anarchy of the many. ORATION — W. E. ARTHUR. 525 or the tyranny of the few, alternately shocked mankind with their competitive atrocities. All Europe trembled with the tread of the squadrons and blazed with the fire of musketry and can- non. Suddenly all mankind paused to gaze upon a first-rate figure, of antique mould and pensive aspect, yet in the dawn of youth. He was a lawyer's son, an orphan of Corsica, a school boy of Brienne, a sub-lieutenant of artillery. He left school distin- guished in mathematics, tolerably versed in history and geo- graphy, a laggard in Latin and other studies of his course. He appeared in the streets of Paris without a sou. He wrote to his mother "with my sword by my side, and Homer in my pocket, I hope to carve my way through the world." He not only arrested, he absorbed the attention of mankind, and he kept it. He advanced to the front ; he became the government of the ancient and shattered remnant of the brilliant empire of Louis the Fourteenth ; he stood forth the recognized Colossus of his era, if not of every era, " Underneath him the world's mountains lay Like mole hills, and her streams like lucid threads." He uplifted fallen and bleeding France. " Decayed in her glory, and sunk in her worth, He made her the gem and the wonder of earth." The story of this man is the story of vanishing forms — of the chaos of states. He was the resistless genius of war, and the peerless organizer of peace. Action was his divinity. After his glorious campaign in Italy he exclaimed, " They do not long preserve at Paris the remembrance of anything. My glory is declining. If I remain long unemployed I am undone." States .and empires rose and fell at his command, and crowns and kingdoms were as pawns. He scaled all. " The slippery tops of human state The gilded pinnacles of fate" Egypt, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Hanover, Naples, Prussia, Russia, Westphalia, Spain, Holland, all continental Europe adorned his triumphal march, and came and went in his im- perial retinue. He obliterated and reconstructed the map of one continent, and plowed with his sword the mountains, plains and seas of three ; he eclipsed the ineffectual glory of Semira~ 526 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. mis and Tamerlane, of Clovis and Charlemagne, of Pyrrhus and Alexander, of Hannibal and Sciopio, of Csesar and Titus, of Conde and Marlborough ; he dominated all dominions and powers in his ubiquitous march, and, falling on the fields of Waterloo, crushed under a world in arms for his destruction, even as " A bubble bursting in the thunder cloud His course has novo.ition, and he drifts The passive plaything of the winds." France, glorious, fallen France, was virtually trusteed by the imperial conquerors, and the ancient monarchy rehabilitated. The successor of Clovis, in the person of Louis the Eighteenth, was crowned and sceptered by her armed enemies, and the map of Europe again dissected and patched up to suit the ephermeral fasliion of the new order of things ; and the dis- crowned hero-sage, even as the stricken bud of Jove, " Though his eyes Are shut, that looked uudazzled on the sun, He was the Sulton of the sty, and earth Paid tribute to his eyre." In the meantime Russia, Prussia and Austria fixed upon Poland the evil eye, and England finished her horoscope of the near future of Ireland. Poland, the ancient, the heroic, the un- fortunate ; the leonine site of the forest home of the warlike vandal, who first swept down upon imperial Rome, and with an audacity as imperial as that of Rome in her proudest days, fiercely battled to push from her seat the haughty mistress of the world ; founded as* a duchy in the sixth, and raised to a kingdom in the tenth century — the bower of beauty, the field of chivalry, and the native land of Kosciusko — consecrated by . the achievements and the memories of over twelve centuries of honorable antiquity — Poland was seized, pillaged and par- titioned by imperial rapacity, her very existence erazed from the map, and her beauty and valor slain, enslaved or exiled. " Wreathed, filleted, the victim fell renowned, And all her ashes will be holy ground." ****** " Body hilling tyrants cannot hill Tho public soul — the hereditary will That downward, as from sire to son it goes, By shining bosoms nioie intensely glows; 0RAT0IN W. E. ARTHUR. 527 " Its heir-loom is the heart, and slaughtered men. Fight fiercer in their orphans o'er again- Poland recasts — though rich in heroes old — Her men in more and more heroic mould ; Her eaglo ensign, best among mankind Becomes, and types her eagle strength of mind.' Fate, too, closed in upon Ireland, and the " sweetest isle of the ocean " sank into the alien embrace of Albion, and into con- solidation with the empire of Great Britain. Long had been her struggle, painful her vicissitudes — heroic her spirit. The morning sun of the first coming of the nineteenth century shed its melancholy rays upon the spoliated sovereignty, de- jected children and prostrate form of a land whose inalienable freedom and whose gallant race are proudly traced to a hight of antiquity, to which England and Englishmen must forever remain unknown. From Phoenicia, from the vales of Pales- tine, the mountains of Lebanon and the shores of the Medi- terranean, with the bold spirit of the mountaineer, the fervid genius of the plain and the adventurous courage of the sea, two thousand years before history deigned to notice " perfidious Albon" or Imperial Caesar, sprang the free-born scions of Erin go Braugh ! And wherever thought that lifts the soul, eloquence that stirs the heart, song that enraptures the senses, valor that ennobles the spirit — or the union of all these forms in one per- son, the hero, the sage, the poet and the orator, there in the forefront, the formost among his peers, stands erect and daunt- less the son of Erin ! For four thousand years he has stood embattled in freedom's cause, wherever freedom bled ; for four thousand years through every variety of adverse fortune he maintained the sovereignty " of his own native isle of the ocean" — the independence of his own " seabeaten shore ; " and in his exile he exclaims : " Tet all its sad recollections suppressing, One dying •wish my lone bosom can draw ; Erin ! an exile, bequeaths thee his blessing I Land of my forefathers I Erin go bragh ! Buried and cold, when my heart stills her motion, Green be thy fields — sweetest isle of the ocean 1 And thy harp -striking bards sing aloud^with devotion— Erin mavourneen — Erin go bragh." In a short time the restored Bourbon slept in the tomb of his 528 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. royal line ; his successor wore his crown, and was speedily deposed, and Louis Phillippe feebly grasped the scepter of Charlemagne, only to experience exile ; wbile the star of the hero of Lodi and his son of Austerlitz were re-enkindled ; and the nephew of his uncle began and pursued an imperial career, alike brilliant in peace and in war. One midsummer's day he handed to the French town of Boulogne, on the shore of the English channel, with a tamo eagle, as the sole emblem of his title to the imperial crown of his uncle. On another day Sing Louis fled — and on another, Napoleon the Third was declared, by eight millions of voters, hereditary emperor of the French, by the grace of God and by the will of the people. The recognized first sovereign in Europe— the combined powers of the world, that with savage terror, had hunted down the first hero of his name to the sea- girt rock of St. Helena, that had tracked " the steps of glory to the grave," and pursued into the recesses of the tomb — " Shrine of the mighty ! can it be That this is all remains of thee?"— are now discovered courting his imperial alliance, espousing his imperial policy, and combining with his imperial arms. Great Britain that had united with the Russian and the Cos- sack, and had invoked the aid of all Europe, to extirpate the Uncle, now rejoiced in the friendly alliance of the Nephew for the destruction of the Russian and the Cossack, on the billows of the Black sea, and on the hights and plains of the Crimea. Then were re-enacted by the Nephew and his ally the deeds of Lodi, of Marengo, of Jena, of Austerlitz and of Eylau — at the siege of Sebastopol, on the banks of the Alma, in the battles of Balaklava and of Inkerman, in the sanguinary storming of the Malakoff and of the Redan, with "their looming bastions fringed with fire," and on the bloody field of Tchemaya, cul- minating in the retributive defeat and humiliation of the Czar of all the Russias. And subsequently Austria, another one of the imperial parti- cipators in the sacrifice of the Uncle, was in his turn beaten and humbled on the glorious fields of Magenta and of Solf erino, and ORATION W. E. ARTHUR. 529 driven to implore protection from impending punishment in the peace of Villafranca. But Prussia had not forgotten her terrific sufferings on the dreadful field of Jena. She had been struck, trampled upon, lacerated and dismembered. No high-spirited race could cease to feel the rankling of such an accumulation of wounds, per- haps least of all, that branch of the Teutonic, the most warlike, and the most all-conquering type of man, that was, that is, and that is to be. " And if we do bnt watch the hour, There never yet was hnman power Which could evade, if unforgiven, The patient search and vigil long Of him who treasures np a wrong." Prussia had bided her time, had accumulated, consolidated and disciplined her resources, and perfected her squadrons. She had become the German Empire. She stretched away from the cloud-clapped peaks of the Tyrol Alps on the South, to the sea beach of the Baltic on the North, and from the banks of the Niemen and of the Vistula on the borders of Russia, to the shores of the Miselle and the summits of the Vosges moun- tains on the confines of France. In the name of the fatherland and of the unification of the German people, William the First, of the House of Hohenzol- len, unsheathed the sword of the Great Frederick, and side by side with Hilmuth Karl Bernard von Moltke, the first living soldier in Europe, in one single great battle dashed in pieces the military power of Austria on the field of Sadowa. He was now prepared, and like a good knight in the tournament, mounted, and with his lance in rest, awaiting his predestined antagonist ! Pretexts of state are never wanting. In an evil hour the Third Napoleon was betrayed into a declaration of war. Within twenty-five days a great French army was beaten at Worth ; within thirty days the grand army of Bazaine was beaten at Metz ; and anon another great French army was doubled up and destroyed at Sedan ; and in fine, the Emperor Napoleon, and one hundred and fifty thousand French soldiers with arms in their hands were made prisoners of war, and the fate of the third phase of the French 530 OUH NATIONAL JUBILEE. Empire sealed. At every point the French were bewildered, out-generaled and outnumbered. It did indeed, seem as though the genius of the First Napoleon animated the ubiquitous and irresistible enemies of the Third. So the wheel of fortune turned and turned again, and France, the ancient, the brilliant, the scientific, the speculative, the chivalric France, was torn, and trampled on and devastated and dismembered — bought her ransom with fabulous tribute, and, breathless and wasted, sought shelter 'neath the friendly cegis of republican forms, under the aged Thiers and the battle-scared McMahon. Such are the tracings of a few of the vanishing forms of one theater of the world, which has preceded our own in the known progress of civilization, and is far older in the course of historic time — while in the meantime, the work of development and con- struction continued, making up the magnificent pageant of the new. Such are the vicissitudes of states we call great, and of men we call famous. Such is fame ; and it is said by one of whom Macauley declares, " he had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked " — that " Tis bat to fill A certain portion of uncertain paper : Some liken it to climbing up a hill, Whose summer, like all hills, is lost in vapor : For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kilL And bards burn what they call their ' midnight taper.' To have, when the original is dust, A name." The forbidding continent of Africa has continued almost wholly void of philosophical events ; its natural fastnesses un- broken, its sourceless rivers and miasmatic lakes, unknown (save to the Mungo Parks and the adventurous Livingstons, who have seen and died), its mountain heights unexplored, its valleys shrouded and its treasures buried. Immersed in inhospitable and barbaric seclusion, it is draped in a sepulchral pall of soli- tude from the snow-wreathed summits of Kenia to the burning sands of Sahel. From the mouth of the Gambia to the Cape of Guardafui, and from the orange river to the Barbary States, ORATION— W. E. ARTHUR. 5ol there is still scarcely any dominion better than the dominion of the lion and of the jackal — scarce any society superior to that of the gorilla and the monkey. Battalions of elephants, regi- ments of hippopotami, brigades of the rhinoceros, and all the file of associate brutes, and legends of gibbering monkien and screeching hyenas, traverse the scenery and make nature di- abolical. The boundless j)lains of Sahara and the contiguous places, are still scourged by the fire-fiend of the simmoon and storm-beaten by the blazing sirocco. The Caucasian, scattered in sparce settlements along the coasts of the Indian and of the Atlantic oceans, and of the Arabian and of the Red seas, is still, now and then, encroaching a step upon the fathomless interior, hunting ivory on the coast, search- ing for diamonds and delving for gold, in the soil of Guinea, the mountains of Kong and the valleys of the Orange and of the Vaal. Throughout Soodan, Senegambia, and the two Guineas, the Ethiopian in all his worst varieties, the Hottentots, the Bushman, the Caffres, and the Gallas, " Kings that rule Behind the hidden sources of the Nile." still hover upon the dividing line between man and brute, and practice the lowest vices of both ; while here and there oc- casionally recur brighter spots, " like a rich jewel in Ethiop's ear," of Europeans, Moors, Arabs, Copts and Egyptians. Indeed Africa, in a moral sense, is so apparently dead, that it seems to be beyond the sphere of both immutable laws and vanishing forms. It seems chaos and night, without change. Will it continue to be the pariah of continents and the unresur- rected dead body of a civilization debauched and lost." The genius of the Fx'ench engineer has re-created the Isth- mus of Suez, pierced the solid earth and subdued the ageless barriers of nature; Asia and Africa now contemplate each other apart, the waters of the Mediterranean and the Red sea mingle between the continents, and the mercantile marine and the floating bulwarks of the nations of the world, double the Cape of Good Hope and come and go to and from China, Japan and Australia, through the Arabian sea and the Indian ocean. 532 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. The everlasting Alps have finally surrendered their mighty ramparts " bulwarked round and armed with rising towers." Those continents piled end on end, away up in the region of perpetual snow, down whose rugged sides from plateau to pla- teau, and from peak to peak, into the abysm beneath, leap and thunder whole acres of blue transparent ice and crystal foam and glittering snow — among whose crags and glaciers and yawning chasms, and over whose dizzy summits slowly clam- bered the Carthagenians under Hannibal and the French un- der the first Napoleon — now become no more formidable than swinging pyramids or holiday pavillions, through which from one side cf the continent to the other in the space of twenty minutes, move train after train, in endless progression, in all the luxurious abandon of modern railway travel. Asia, reaching away from Kamtchatka and Corea to the strait of Babel Mandeb, and from Mt. Ophir and the Gulf of Siam to the Straits of Behring and the Gulf of Obi, " rich in the spoils of time," the mother of continents and the home of one half the people on the globe's face, of all countries the most stern, absolute, and inexorable in her paganistic forms — Asia is this day trembling, in every fibre of her hoary fabric, with the tramp of awakening progress. Man, here had his birth — man — creation's heir, " the most senseless and fit," " A noble animal, Splendid in ashes And pompous in the grave, on this spot was he cradled. Here burst upon time the great drama of the planet we in- habit. Over the uplands and planes of more than sixteen mil- lion square miles, washed by seven mighty seas and traversed by twelve great rivers — overlooked by those stupendous senti- nels of the upper skies, the mountain spires of Himialaya, twenty-nine thousand feet above the level of the sea — was enacted the wondrous pageant of Asiatic empire. The ima- gination becomes oppressed with visions of the glory and shame of the east, under the wizard spell of the names of Babylon and Nineveh, Jerusalem and Sidon, Tyre, and Palmyra, Antioch ORATION W. E. ARTHUR. 533 and Susa, Eebatana and Persepolis, Selucia and Ephesus, of Bagdad and Aleppo, of Bassorah and Damascus. From this prolific seed-bed of all that is great and small in human pro- gress sprang the science, literature and all forms of growth of every era, race and clime. Along with imperial forests of Cyprus, ebony and myrtle, of rosewood and pine, of palm and mangrove and oak ; along with its gorgeous vegitation of oderiferous flowers and medicinial gums ; its groves of orange, banana, cocoanut and date, of mul- berry and olive, of peach and grape : along with its mines of diamonds and precious stones, its Ural gold and its Siberian silver, appeared and disappeared its generations of beautiful and brave, at once the ancestors and the posterity of all the virtues and vices which have either distinguished or disgraced the family of man. Here Creation's Lord, in the burning bush, and on Sinai's summit, taught the just ways of earth and the fixed laws of Heaven ; and here, as from the realm of Ale, have originated and raged those incantations sorceries, in forms of perverted conscience, and unhallowed faith ; hindooism, pantheism, buddhism, monotheism, dualism, Mohammedanism, babism and other mysteries and rites, which in the sacred name of religion, have enslaved and destroyed whole generations past. " God's most dreaded instrument. In working out a pure intent, Is man arrayed for mutual slaughter. Tea, carnage is his daughter." More than one-third part of the continent has already fallen under the control of Great Britain and Russia, and many flour- ishing settlements have been made there by the French, the Portuguese, and the Dutch. The ancient government of China has been made to tremble under the shock of successive insur- rections, menacing the stability of the whole senile system of absolutism, and its hitherto inaccessible internal "departments have been visited by the followers after Marco Polo, missionaries of Christianity and others, forming a sort of corps of observation or of flying scouts, in advance of the grand army, or of the schoolmaster of progress for the dissemination of the seeds of a higher civilization. 534 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. Embassies from Great Britain have subsequently reached the imperial presence of the Celestial Emperor, who has heretofore claimed the sovereignty of the world ; the East India company admitted to the privileges of commercial intercourse with his subjects ; the opium war and the ensuing war of the allies has been successfully waged, Canton bombarded and occupied by the English and the French ; the Celestial Empire has paid a ransom of more than twenty-one millions of dollars, sued for peace, ceded Hong Kong and other Celestial territory, opened wide her sealed ports to trade, and consummated treaties with England, France, Russia, and the United States ; and an Ameri- can citizen recruited into the service and accredited as the Min- ister of the Celestial Empire to declare to the nations of Chris- tendom, a change of Celestial policy, and overtures of interna- tional friendship. Japan has opened her ports and flung wide the gates of her cities ; sent and received ministers and commercial agents, and made and accepted official negociations of trade and intercourse; visited the United States officially in the person of an eminently influential member of the Imperial family with an imposing em- bassy ; consummated treaties, and admitted Americans and Europeans to positions of official authority in her internal ad- ministration, and in many ways is rapidly introducing and cul- tivating the ameliorating instrumentalities of the civilization of Christendom. South America, heretofore the romantic realm of the ancient Incas, and the interesting theater of the conquests of Pizarro, and of the tyranny and rapacity of the Spaniard ; abounding in mineral and metallic treasure, and in all the varied natural ele- ments of public and private opulence; with her tropical fruits and plants, her endless rivers and towering mountain chains, and encircling ocean coast lines — has become the grand arena of a flourishing civilization approximating our own. She is a young continential giant, breaking loose from all the iron preju- dices and barron forms of an imported effete civilization. She soon caught the inspiration of the example of her northern sister, and, stimulated to yet more enthusiastic exertions for independ- ence by the clarion voice and patriotic eloquence of our illustri- ORATION — W. E. ARTHUR. 535 ous Clay, the sympathy of our people and the early recognition of our government, this favorite peninsula of the new world has already outstripped more ancient states in the race for popular liberty and political progress, and now gracefully sits in the cir- cle of the family of civilized nations, the central figure of a con- stellation of flourishing republican states. And now Mexico — destined to form our most southern frontier — intercepts our home view; there she lies, right across the tropic of Cancer, washed by to great oceans, by the Carib- bean sea, and by the Gulf of Mexico. She seems to have been, and to still be, the sport of fortune, the spoiled child of Nature, and the mockery of men. She is a serio-comic pagant within herself. Her valleys and hills are enamelled by profusions of the most beautiful fl< >wers, and fanned by soft breezes filled with the most fragrant odors. Her vegetable and mineral wealth resemble a universal mine, a boundless garden. All over San Luis Potosi, Sinaloa, Zaccatecas, Sonora, Ojaca and elsewhere, glitters the untold wealth of her deposits of gold and veins of silver, which in the past have poured into the lap of the world the enormous sum of four thousand millions of treasure. Even as that of the Hesperides, her birth dates from the realms of myth, and she follows the tracings other descent through the darkness and thf pageantry of romance. When she touches the sphere of the tangible, in the seventh century, we look upon the dominion of the stately Toltee, with his flowing tunic and gaudy sandal, immersed in the rudiments of mechanics and the mys- teries of the stars, who, in the lapse of centuries, falling a prey to the furies of domestic war and internal dissension, left his country to be devoured as by the dogs of Actean in all the after time. The Toltee migrated from the scene of his undoing. Then followed a sanguinary masquerade of races. The Cbichimecs, living in caverns and following the chase, worshipping the sun as their farther and the earth as their mother ; next came the Tlaxcalan, and drove him out, and the Tlaxcalan, in his turc^ was expelled by the Tepanees ; the latter were subsequently slaughtered by the Atzcapozalco, who afterwards fell under the Techichimees, who were subdued by the Acolhuis, who were con- quered by the Aztecs, and all the frantic races, with their inher* 63G OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. ent vices of dissension, war and rapine, amalgamated into that fruitful progenitor and propagator of revolutions, the Mexican of the nineteenth century. He was at first beaten by his prede- cessors, but he finally triumphed, and inaugurated his system of chaos in a country which the divinity in nature has nut suffered him to destroy. The average Mexican's organ of revolution "is always in a state of chronic inflammation," with some lucid intervals, how- ever, as in the instance of the power, pomp and barbaric magnifi- cence imputed to the empire of the first Montezuma, the Louis the Fourteenth of tropical North America, after which it was conquered by the Spaniards under the banner of Cortez and paid tribute to the Spanish crown. A successful revolution sub- sequently broke the Spanish yoke, and Don Augustus Iturbide was made Emperor of Mexico; him, the Republicans, led by Santa Anna, deposed, and over a picturesque peninsula, filled with virgin gold and silver, carpeted with 1 irilliant flowers, fan- ned by fragrant odors and musical with the song of birds; fac- tion raged and races bled : Bravo, Perdraza, Guerrero, Busta- mente, Santa Anna, by turns rose and fell, with the gamut, in irregular succession, leaving the latter the topmost. Then came Miramon, after him Juarez, a man of affairs; then ensued the war with France, and the imperial episode of Maximillian of Austria, who was nobly crowned and ignobly shot; and now the land of the Toltees and of the Aztecs dwells iu the bonds of an exotic peace, under republican forms and the presidency of Lerda de Tejada. Lying between the thirty-fifth and the forty-fifth degrees of north latitude, and between the tenth degrees of east and the second degree west longitude, from the meridian of Washing- ton — from colonial Georgia to colonial Massachusetts, a little fringe of primitive soil, " a little speck, a small seminal princi- ple rather than a formed body," on the coast of the Atlantic ocean, on the border of an unreclaimed continent of wilderness we observe the then obscure, but since illustrious scenery, in the midst of which, the venerable founders less than three mil- lions strong, of the American system of liberty and law, main- tained their protracted, sanguinary, but finally triumphant ORATION W. E. ARTHUR. 537 struggle against the civilized legions of the white man, from tho Old World, in the front, and the savage hordes of the red man from the New, m the rear. There we left the immortal foun- der busy in the formation of free states — " A pillar of State ; deep on his front engraven Deliberation, sat and public care. * * * • Sage he stood, "With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear i The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look Drew audience and attention still as night Or summer's noontide air." Lying between the twentieth and the seventieth degrees of north latitude, and between the tenth degree of east and the fiftieth degree of west longtitude from the meridian of Wash- ington, from the Lake of the Woods on the north, to Cape Sable on the south, from Maine to Alaska, and from the Albe- marle Sound to the Bay of San Francisco, we now behold a civilized continent of free states, a population of over forty- four millions and a wealth of perhaps forty-five thousand mil- lions that far surpasses, in origin and progress, all that is im- agined in the most wondrous empires of antiquity ; a continent of free states in the bonds of peace, and, let me say, in the com- munion of love, in the uninterrupted enjoyment of all the stu- pendous rosults of the American system of liberty and order " And sovereign law, the states' collected will, O'er thrones and globes elate, Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill." Down deep in the philosophy of nature, imbedded in the granite of her immutable laws, away below the plummet line of vanishing forms, the builders set the corner-stone, and under- lying truisms of our state fabric. They assert that man is the first figure in creation's bounds ; he is his own equal ; his nat- ural rights, generalized, are life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- piness. These rights are inherent and inalienable ; he alone is sovereign, and he alone is the source of all legitimate law. Law is the rule of right, prescribed by himself, to himself, for his own government ; to this end government is instituted by him, and rests on his consent, and his will may alter or abolish it, and institute it anew of such principles and forms as seem most 538 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. likely to secure his safety and happiness, of which he alone is the judge. Rightful government is, therefore, never his master, it is always his instrument ; and when he becomes disciplined by it, it sustains bim, by the action of his own justice on his own wrong. His nature is social, therefore his safety and happiness lie in union, and union is mutual dependence, and hence laws and forms are the bonds of union. In union he is but one among many, who are all equals, and the whole can act best for the whole, by a few; hence the necessity for common agencies; popular representation; wheret>y to apply the law and the forms alike to all; and as all delegated power tends to abuse, it must be verified of record, be defined and limited by specific, enumerated grants, and by inflexible reservations; and those grants of power must be subdivided and distributed into co- ordinate departments; and the legislative power must be re- stricted to the first, the judicial power to the second, and the executive power to the third; and any, the least, encroachment or fusion, must be jealously guarded against, as incompatible with the liberty, the safety, and the happiness of the people. No human power exists, no human power can be lodged any- where, not even in the government of the whole, to intervene between the individual conscience and its maker; and all re- ligions and forms of worship of Him, must ever remain free and inviolable, for the maintenance of which freedom and inviolabil- ity, all delegated and reserved power is sacredly and irrevocably pledged. Man's speech shall be free; his press shall be free; his right of self-defence shall be free; he shall be secure in his person, papers and effects; shall be protected from arbitrary seizures and searches; shall be entitled to trial by an impartial jury of the vicinage; his right of property shall be maintained inviolable ; the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall be omnipresent and absolute; justice shall be administered be- tween the poor and the rich, between the governed and the gov- erning, fairly, freely and impartially; without sale, denial or delay, under the principles and forms of law made before the fact. These, brief!) 7 adverted to, are some of the familiar but sub- ORATION — W. E. ARTHUR. 539 lime pillars of natural and political truth, which support our whole municipal, state and federal fabric, and spread out un- der and over it, like the fruitful earth beneath us, and the be- nignant sky above us. Forms we have, appearing and vanishing, and they have, indeed, chased each other like harlequins or like furies, over the plane of our progress ; but those natural and political truths are not the forms which vanish ; they are of the laws which are immutable. A bare suggestion of a few of the fruits of our progress surpasses all the exaggerations of panegyric. The thread of human life is yet unbroken, which is coeval with the day of the proclamation of our declaration of independ- ence one hundred years ago, and even now, within the compass of that one life, we number over forty-four millions of free peo- ple, self governing and invincible, with an area of over three and a half million square miles in extent ; with more than eight million families, in more than seven million dwellings, with more than one square mile of land for every ten persons ; with an assessed valuation of property of over thirty thousand millions of dollars, and of a real value in possession of perhaps over forty-five thousand million ; with an annual foreign trade, in imports and exports, of over thirteen hundred millions" of dollars. Over six million of American farmers count within their boun- dary lines over four hundred million acres of land, assessed at a valuation of over nine thousand million of dollars ; with herds of live stock assessed at over one thousand five hundred million of dollars ; with working implements and machinery assessed at over three hundred and thirty-six million of dollars ; with an annual production valued at over two thousand four hundred million of dollars ; with an annual harvest, in bushels, of cereal products of over two hundred and eighty-seven million of wheat; of over seventeen million of rye ; of over seven hundred and sixty- one million of corn ; of over two hundred and eighty-two million of oats ; of over twenty -nine million of barley ; of over ten million of buckwheat ; of fibrous productions, of over five million bales of cotton, of four hundred pounds to the bale ; of over twenty- seven million pounds of flax ; of over twelve thousand tons of 540 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. hemp ; of over one hundred and two million pounds of wool ; of over twenty-seven million tons of hay ; of over twenty-five mil- lion pounds of hops ; of over seventy-three million pounds of rice; of over two hundred and sixty-three million pounds of tobacco ; of over eighty-seven thousand hogsheads of cane, and of over twenty-nine million pounds of maple sugar ; of over twenty-four million gallons of molasses ; of over one hundred and sixty-five million bushels of potatoes ; of over five million bnshels of peas and beans ; of over fifteen million pounds of bees' honey ; of over three million gallons of domestic wine ; of over five hundred and fourteen million pounds of butter ; of over fifty-four million pounds of cheese ; of over two hundred and thirty-six million gallons of milk. With over two hundred and fifty-three thousand manufactur- ing establishments ; with a capital of over two thousand million of dollars, and materials valued at over two thousand five hun- dred million of dollars, and productions valued at over four thousand two hundred million of dollars, employing over two million of persons, with wages of over eight hundred million of dollars ; with over eight thousand mining establishments, with a capital of over two hundred and twenty-three million ; with ma- terials valued at over fifteen millions; with productions valued at over one hundred and fifty-six millions, employing over one hundred and fifty-four thousand persons, with wages of over seventy-four millions of dollars. With over one hundred and forty-two thousand colleges and schools, with an income of over ninety-six million of dollars ; with over two hundred and twenty-one thousand teachers ; with over eight million pupils ; with over one hundred and sixty-five thou- sand libraries, containing over forty-six million volumes. With over eight thousand newspapers, with a circulation of over twenty-one millions, with a daily issue of over two million six hundred thousand copies, and with an annual issue of over one thousand and six hundred million copies. With over seventy-three thousand church organizations, with over twenty-two million sittings, with over sixty-three thousand churches, with property valued at over three hundred and fifty- five millions of dollars. ORATION — W. £. AUTHOR. 541 While our systems of telegraphy and railway are the new tes- tament of a boundless civilization and the heralds, by laud and by sea, of the millenium of intercourse and commerce. Yv'ith a naval and mercantile marine whitening every sea, and saluted in every harbor; and a citizen soldiery, "Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain." The brightest examples of antiquity, of the middle ages, or of modern times, cannot dim the lustre of the founders of our civil and political system. Measured by the purity of their lives, they stand foremost among tbeir equals; measured by the grandeur and beneficence of their works, they certainly have no superiors, probably no equals, in the annals of mankind. As for the most part ihe originators, as wholly the builders, and as pre-eminently the champions of that system of polity which rests in its sublime strength upon the intellectual capacity, and the moral duty of man, f >r self-government they signally embody, in every vicissitude of their heroic career, in war and in peace, the noblest models of human virtue, wisdom, fortitude and dig- nity, for the study, the admiration, the veneration and the prac- tice of all aftertimes. " Low in glory *s lap they lie ; Streaming splendor throngh the sky. Nor sink those stars in empty night, They hide themselves in heaven's own light." Their public and private letters, their state papers, speeches, documents and miscellaneous writings, possess a masculine strength, a native delicacy, a depth of philosophy, an elevation of diction and a knowledge of nations and of men, which reward the study of scholars, patriots and statesmen, and form a politi- cal literature of American classics, which has never been equal- ed, and which will, perhaps, never be excelled. No man can study the thoughts and words of Washington, of Franklin, of the Adamses, of Hamilton, of Henry, of Jefferson, of Madison, of Marshall, without experiencing a loftier concep- tion of the moral and intellectual nature and dignity of his race, without feeling the quickened pulsation of a nobler humanity and a more elevated patriotism. 542 onn national jubilee. No man is faultless ; no character can .ever be perfect. The annals of the great display many remarkable men. Agamem- non was great in kingly station, Achilles was great in arms, Nes- tor was wise in council, and Ulysses was eloquent in debate, Csesar and Napoleon, each in his sphere excelled — indeed stand pre-eminent in the dazzling combination of the splendid quali- ties which " surpass or subdue mankind ; " but out of the cloud of their blemishes, they looked down and, "gashed with honor- able scars," fell by the hate of those below. In George "Wash- ington the splendid qualities which " surpass or subdue man- kind," were so softened and purified in combination with those which make man re-form himself in the image of his Maker, and steadily ascend to still nobler heights in the scale of moral ex- cellence ; that in his own and in foreign lands, he "is first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen :" " Where may the wearied eye repose When gazing on the great, Where neither guilty glory glows, Nor despicable state I Yes, one — tho iirst — the last— the best — The Cincinnatns of the west, Whom envy dared not hate— Bequeathed the name of Washington To make men blush there is bat one." THE ILIAD OF PATRIOTISM. AN ADDEESS BY LION. J. G. M. RAMSEY, M. D., PRESIDENT OF THE TENN. HISTORICAL SOCIETY. read by rev. t. a, hoyt, at the centennial celebration at nash- ville, tenn., july 4th, 1876. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Historical Society Ladies and Gentlemen : — It gives me pleasure to comply with the request of the Historical society and of its honored Presi- dent, Dr. Ramsey, I hold in my hand his contribution to this centennial occasion. It merits your attention. Its author is the head of this honorable body, whose labors are directed to preserve the memorials of your past history. He is the his- torian of Tennessee : he is venerable for age, for wisdom, for virtue ; he is at once a patriot, a saint, a sage. Standing on the verge of life, he speaks to us with the authority of an ancient oracle. Let ingenuous youth imbibe freely the influence of his example ; let them ponder well the lessons of his life. He imparts those lessons here not in the vagueness of theories of virtue, but by citing signal instances of it. This narrative he would have stored in your memories, and reproduced in the elevation of your sentiments. It may be entitled, " the Iliad of Patriotism." This is the centennial year — the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of American Independence. The question naturally arises, what part did Tennessee per- form in gaining that independence? She was not one of the thirteen colonies ; there were but two or three small white set- tlements within her borders. He relates the struggles of the early settlers with the Indians ; the steady growth of the infant colony ; the formation of the two counties ; their voluntary annexation to North Carolina, and then rjroceeds to recount as follows their prowess and for- tunes in the Revolutionary war : 544 OUB NATIONAL JUBILEE. After the signal repulse of Sir Peter Parker from Charleston in 177G, the Southern States had a respite from British attack and invasion. The conquest of the States was thereafter at- tempted from the North to the South. The war continued to rage with varied success. But in 1778 the order of invasion from this time was inverted, and his Majesty's arms were di- rected against the most Southern States. On the 29th of De- cember, Savannah, the capital of Georgia, was taken, and soon after British posts were established as far into the interior as Augusta. Gen. Lincoln, then the commandant of the Southern department, sent a detachment of fifteen hundred North Caro- lina malitia under Gen. Ashe, to oblige the enemy to evacuate the upper part of Georgia. The detachment was surprised by Gen. Provost and entirely defeated. The Southern army was nearly broken up. The quiet possession of Georgia by the enemy brought to their aid many of the Indians and of the loyalists, who had fled from the Carolinas and Georgia and taken refuge among them. These were now emboldened to col- lect from all quarters and under cover of Provost's army. It became evident that all that was wanting to complete British ascendency in the South, was the possession of Charleston. Should that metropolis, and the army that defended it, be cap- tured, the reduction of the whole State, and probably North Carolina also, would ensue. An immense army with a large supply of amunition invested Charleston. The defense was pro- tracted, under every discouragement and disadvantage, from the 27th of March to the 12th of May, when Gen. Lincoln found himself obliged to capitulate. The fall of the metropolis was soon after succeeded by the rapid conquest of the interior coun- try, and from the sea west to the mountains, the progress of the enemy was almost wholly an uninterrupted triumph. The inhabitants generally submitted, and were either paroled as prisoners, or took protection as British subjects. A few brave and patriotic men under gallant and indomitable leaders re- mained in arms, but were surprised and cut to pieces by Tarleton and Webster, or, for security from their pursuit, withdrew into North Carolina. The march of the enemy was continued toward the populous Whig settlements, and garrisons were established ADDRESS — J. G. M. RaMSEY 545 at prominent points of the country, with the view of pushing their conquests still further into the interior. In fine, South Carolina was considered a subdued British province rather than an American State. But in the midst of the general submission of the inhabitants, there remained a few unconquerable spirits whom nothing but death could quell. These were Sumter, Marion and Williams in South Carolina, and Clark and Twiggs in Georgia. Some of these retired, with an inconsiderable number of men, into North Carolina, some of whom crossed the mountains and imparted to the Western settlers the first intelligence that had reached Wa- tuga of the conquest and atrocities of the enemy. The frontier- men had left parents and kindred and countrymen east of the Alleghanies, and their hearts yearned for their safety and deliver- ance. The homes of their youth were pillaged by the foreign soldiery, and the friends they loved were slain or driven into ex- ile. Above all, the great cause of American freedom and inde- pendence was in danger, the country was invaded by a powerful foe, and the exigencies of Carolina called aloud for every absent son to return to her rescue and defence. The call was promptly obeyed, and the mountainmen — the pioneers of Tennessee — were the first to resist the invaders of the South, and restrained not from the pursuit of the vanquished enemy till they reached the coast of the Atlantic. 1780. — Heretofore the military services of the Western soldiery had been limited to the defense and protection of their secluded homes in the wilderness, and to the invasion of the country of the hostle Cherokee and Shawnee Indian tribes. The riflemen from the backwoods had never seen a British soldier or met the discipline and skill of a foreign enemy. It remained to be de- monstrated whether the success which had ever attended their encounters with the savage foe, would continue to crown their military operations with a civilized enemy, and upon the new theatre now opening up before them where an opportunity oc- curred for the solution of the question. 1780. — Gen. Rutherford, of North Carolina, issued a requisi- tion for the militia of that State to embody for the defense of their sister State. That order reached Watauga, and the follow- 546 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. ing proceedings were immediately bad in that patriotic and gal- lant community. They are copied from the original manuscript, almost illegible from the ravages of time and exposure, though still showing plainly the bold and characteristic chirography oi Col. Sevier and the commissioned officers under him. There is no preamble, no circumlocution — nothing but action, prompt and decisive action, and the name of tbe actors. " At a meeting of sundry of the militia officers of Washington county, this 19th day of March, 1780, present John Sevier, colonel ; Jonathan Tipton, major ; Joseph Wilson, John M. Webb, Godfrey Isbell, Win. Trimble, James Stinson, Kobert Sevier, captains ; and Landon Carter, lieutenant in the absence of Valentine Sevier, captain." A similar requisition was made upon Isaac Shelby, the colonel of Sullivan county. He was then absent in Kentucky when the dispatch reached him June 16. He immediately returned home. His appeal to the chivalry of Sullivan county was met by a hearty response, and early in July he found himself at tbe head of two hundred mounted riflemen, whom he rapidly led to the camp of McDowell, near the Cherokee ford of Broad River in South Car- olina. Col. Charles McDowell had, in the absence of Gen. Ruther- ford taken prisoner at Camden, succeeded that officer in com- mand when he had forwarded to Sevier and Shelby a dispatch informing those officers of the capitulation of Charleston, and the capture of the whole Southern army, and that the enemy had overrun South Carolina and Georgia and was rapidly approach- ing the limits of North Carolina ; and requesting them to bring- to his aid all the riflemen that could be raised, and in as short time as possible. Sevier had already enrolled under the requi- sition of Gen. Rutherford one hundred of the militia of Washing- ton county. At his call one hundred others immediately volun-. tered, and with these two hundred mounted riflemen he started at once across the mountain for the camp of McDowell, where he arrived a few days before the arrival of Shelby. Col. Clarke, of Georgia, with a command of refugee Whigs was at the same time at McDowell's headquarters. In the meantime the British army had taken post at Ninety- Six, Camden and Cheraw. At the former place Col. Nesbit Balfour, commandant, issued his proclamation, in which he ADDRESS J. G. M. RAMSEY. 541 gave notico " That every inhabitant of this Province who is not at his own house by the 24th instant, is hereby declare J an out law, and is to be treated accordingly, and his property, of what- ever kind, confiscated and liable to military execution.'' This was a phase of tyranny and military usurpation at which the plain common sense of justice of the volunteer riflemen revolted. They had learned also in their conference with the refugee "Whigs under Clark, something of the atrocious cruelties prac- ticed by the Tories and their British leaders. Lord Cornwallis, meeting with little obstruction in his vic- torous march, contemplated an extension of his conquest through North Carolina. He had instructed the loyalists of that State not to rise until his approach to its southern bound- ary would favor their concentration with his forces and at the same time intimidate the Wnigs. As he approached Camden, Col. Patrick Moore appeared at the head of a large body of dis- affected Americans, and erecting the royal standard, invited to it all the loyalists in that scetion. The rapid successes of the enemy and his near approach greatly encouraged the rising of the Tories, and Colonel Moore, after an uninterrupted march, took post in a strong fort built by Glen. Williamson four years before, during the Cherokee war. It was surrounded by a strong abattis and was otherwise well provided with defenses. Such was the position of affairs when the Western riflemen arrived, as has been seen, at the camp of McDowell. They were, at their own request, immediately detached against Moore. His post was more than twenty miles distant. The riflemen took up the line of march at sunset,, and at the dawn of day next morning surrounded the fort. Shelby sent in one of his men and made a peremptory demand of the surrender of the Fort. To this Moore replied that he would defend it to the last extremity. This suited exactly the mettle of the assailants and their lines were immediately drawn in, within musket-shot of the enemy all round, with a determination to make an assault upon the fort. But before proceeding to extremities, a second message was sent in. To this Moore replied that he would surrender on condition that the garrison be paroled not to serve again during 648 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. tlio war. The assailants were as humane as they were brave, and to save the effusion of the blood of the deluded loyalists, the terms were agreed to. The fort was surrendered. Ninety- three loyalists and one British Serjeant-Major were in the gar- rison, with two hundred and fifty stand of arms, all loaded with ball and buck-shot, and so disposed of at the port holes that double . the number of the Whigs might have been easily re- pulsed. This bold and unexpected incursion of the mountain men, to- gether with the capture of the garrison under Col. Moore, in- duced Lord Cornwallis to detach from his main army some en- terprising officers, with a small command, to penetrate through the country, embody the loyahsts and take possession of the strongest posts in the interior. This had become the more ne- cessary as the advance of the American army under DeKalb, and afterward under Gates, began to inspirit the desponding Whigs, and at the same time restrained the vigorous co-opera- tion of the Tories with the British troops. Measures were there- fore adopted to embody and discipline the zealous loyahsts, and for this purpose Col. Ferguson, an active and intelligent officer, possessing peculiar qualifications for attaching to him the marksmen of Ninety-six, was dispatched in that district. " To a corps of one hundred picked regulars he soon succeeded in at- taching twelve or thirteen hundred hardy natives. This camp became the rendezvous of the desperate, the idle and the vindic- tive, as well as the youth of the loyahsts, whose zeal or ambition prompted them to military service." Astonished by the bold and unexpected incursion of the west- ern volunteer riflemen under Shelby and Sevier, and apprehend- ing that the contagion of the example and their presence might encourage the Whigs of Carolina to resume their arms, Fergu- son and the loyahsts took measures to secure the allegiance of the inhabitants by written agreements entered into and signed by disaffected American officers in the military service. By such and other means were the resident Whigs dispirited and the ranks of the British and Tories hourly enlarged. As he advanced, Ferguson, increased his command till it amounted to above two thousand men, in addition to a small ADDKESS 3. G. M. EAMSEY. 5J9 squadron of horse. To watch their movements and if possible to cut off their foraging parties, Col. McDowell soon after the surprise and capture of Col. Moore, detached Col. Shelby and Clarke with six hundred mounted riflemen. Several attempts were niade by Ferguson to surprise this party, but, in every in- stance his designs were baffled. However, on the first of August 1780, his advance of six or seven hundred men came up with the American party under Shelby and Clarke at a place called Cedar Spring, where they had chosen to fight them. A sharp conflict ox half an hour ensued, when Ferguson came up with his whole force and the Americans withdrew, carrying off with them from the field of battle twenty prisoners and two British oinceis. The killed of the enemy was not ascertained. The American loss was ten or twelve killed and wounded. Re- ceiving information that a party of four or five hundred Tories were encamped at Musgrove's Mills, on the South side of Euoree River, about forty miles from his camp, McDowell again de- tached Shelby and Clarke, together with Col. "Williams who had joined his command, to surprise and disperse them. Ferguson lay, with his whole force at that time, exactly between. The detachment amounted to six hundred horsemen. These took up their line of march just before sundown, on the evening of the 18th of August. They went through the woods until dark, and then took a road leaving Ferguson's camp some three or four miles to the left. They rode very hard all night, and at the dawn of day, about half a mile from the enemy's camp, were met by a strong patrol party. A short skirmish followed, when the enemy retreated. At that moment a countryman living- close at hand, came up and informed tne party that the enemy had beeu reinforced the evening before with six hundred regu- lar troops, under Col. Ennes, which were destined to join Fer- guson's army. The circumstances of this information were so minute that no doubt could be entertained of its truth. For six hundred men, fatigued by a night ride of forty miles, to march and attack the enemy thus reinforced, seemed rash and improper. To attempt an escape by a rapid retreat, broken down as were both men and horses, as equally hopeless, if not impossi- 550 OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. "ble. The heroic determination was, therefore, instantly formed to make the best defence they could under the existing circum- stances. A rude and hasty breastwork of brush and old logs was immediately constructed. Capt. Inman was sent forward with about twenty-five men to meet the enemy and skirmish with them as soon as they crossed the Enoree. The sound of their drums and bugles soon announced their movements, and induced the belief that they had cavalry. Inman was ordered to fire upon them, and retreat according to his own discretion. This stratagem drew the enemy forward in disorder, as they be- lieved they had driven the whole party. When they came up within seventy yards a most destructive fire from the riflemen, who lay concealed behind their breastwork of logs, commenced. It was one whole hour before the enemy could force the Ameri- cans from their slender defence, and just as they began to give way in some points, the British commander, Colonel Ennes, was wounded. All his subaltans, except one, being previously killed or wounded, and Captain Hawsey, the leader of the loyalists on the left, being shot down, the whole of the enemy's hue began to yield. The riflemen pursued them close and drove them across the river. In this pursuit the gallant Inman was killed, bravely fighting the enemy, hand to hand. In this action Col. Shelby commancled the right, Col. Clarke the left, and Col. Wil- liams the centre. The battle lasted one hour and a half. The Americans lay s< i closely behind their little breastwork, that the enemy entirely overshot them, killing only six or seven, amongst whom the loss of the brave Captain Inman was particularly regretted. His stratagem of engaging and skirmishing with the enemy until the riflemen had time to throw up a hasty breastwork — his gal- lant conduct during the action and his desperate charge upon their retreat — contributed much to the victory. He died at the moment it was won. The number of the enemy killed and wounded was considerable. The Tories were the first to es- cape. Of the British regulars, under Col. Ennes, who fought bravely to the last and prolonged the conflict, even against hope, above two hundred were taken prisoners. The Americans returned immediately to their horses and A I 'DRESS — J. G. M. RAMSEY. 551 mounted with the determination to be in Ninety-Six before night. This was a British post less than thirty miles distant, and not far from the residence of Col. Williams, one of the commanders. It was considered best to push their successes into the disaffected regions, before time would allow reinforce- ments to reach them. Besides by marching their scant expe- dition in the direction of Ninety-Six, they would avoid Fergu- son's army, n ar whose encampment they would necessarily have to pass on their return to McDowell's headquarters, at Smith's Ford. At the moment of starting an express from McDowell, rode up in great haste with a short letter in his hand from Gov. CasswelL dated on the battle ground, apprising Mc- Dowell of the defeat of the American grand army under Gates, on the sixteenth, near Camden, advising him to get out of the way, as the enemy would no doubt endeavor to improve their victory to the greatest advantage, by cutting up all the small corps of the American armies. The men and the horses were fatigued by the rapid march of the night as well as by the severe conflict of the morning. They were now encumbered with more than two hundred British prisoners and the spoils of victory. Besides these difficulties now surrounding the Ameri- can party, there was an another that made extrication from them dangerous, if not impossible. A numerous army under an enterprising leader lay in their rear, and there was every reason to believe that Ferguson would have received intelligence of the daring incursion of the riflemen and of the defeat of his friends at the Enoree. The delay of an hour might have proved disastrous to the victors, the prisoners were immediately dis- tributed among the companies, so as to have one to every three men, who carried them alternately on horseback. They rode directly towards the mountains, and continued the march all that day and night and the succeeding day, until late in the evening, without ever stopping to refresh. This long and rapid march — retreat it can hardly be called, as the retiring troops bore with them the fruits of a well-earned victory — saved the Americans, for, as was afterwards ascertained, they were pur- sued closely until late in the evening of the second day after the action by Maj. Dupoister and a strong body of mounted men from Ferguson's army. These became so broken down by ex- 552 OUE NATIONAL JUBILEE. cessive fatigue in hot weather, that they despaired of overtak- ing the Americans, and abandoned the pursuit. Shelby, having seen the party and its prisoners beyond the reach of danger, retired across the mountains. He left the prisoners with Clarke and Williams to be carried to some place of safety to the North, for it was not known then that there was even the appearance of a corps of Americans anywhere south of the Potomac. So great was the panic after the defeat of Gen. Gates at Camden, and the subsequent disaster of Sumter, that McDowell's whole army broke up. He, with several hundred of his followers, yielding to the cruel necessity of the unfortunate circumstances which involved the country, retired across the mountains, and scattered themselves among the hospitable set- tlers in the securer retreats of Nollacbucky and Watauga. 1780. — At this period a deep gloom hung over the cause of American Independence, and the confidence of its most stead- fast friends was shaken. The reduction of Savannah, the capi- tulation at Charleston and the loss of the entire army under Gen. Lincoln, had depressed the hopes of the patriot Whigs, and the subsequent career of British conquest and subjugation of Georgia and South Carolina, excited serious apprehension and alarm for the eventual success of the American cause. At the urgent appeal of the patriotic Gov. Rutledge, Virginia had sent forward reinforcements under Col. Buford. His command was defeated and his men butchered by the sabres of Tarleton. At Camden a second Southern army commanded by Gen. Gates, was dispersed, captured and signally defeated by Cornwallis. But besides these general disasters, there were other circum- stances that aggravated this discouraging condition of American affairs. The finances of Congress were low ; the treasuries of the States were exhausted and their credit entirely lost ; a general financial distress pervaded the country ; subsistence and cloth- ing for the famishing and ill-clad troops were to be procured only by impressment ; and the inability of the Government from the want of means to carry on the war, was openly admitted. British posts were established and garrisons kept up at nu- merous points in the very heart of the Southern country, and detachments from the main British army were with profane im- pudence rioting through the land in an uninterrupted career of ADDRESS — J. G. M. RAMSEY. 553 outrage, aggression and conquest. Uncler the protection of these, the Tories were encouraged to rise against their Whi^ countrymen, to depredate upon then- property, insult their fam- ilies, seek their lives and drive them into exile upon the Western wastes. This was the general condition of American affairs in the South immediately after the defeat near Camden. Gen. Gates, endeavoring to collect together the shattered fragments of his routed army, made a short halt at Charlotte. He after- wards feU back further, and made his headquarters at Hills- boro'. Lord Cornwallis, on the 8th of September, marched towards North Carolina, and as he passed through the most hostile and populous Whig districts he sent Tarleton and Ferguson to scour the country to his right and left. Arrived at Charlotte, and considering it to be a favorable situation for further advances, his lordship made preparation for estabhshing a post at that place. While he was thus engaged, the commanders of his de- tachments were proceeding in their respective expeditions. That of Col. Ferguson, as has been already seen, was for sev- eral weeks on his left, watching the movements of McDowell, Sevier, Shelby, Williams and Clarke. His second in command, Dupoister, had followed the mountain men in close pursuit as they retired, after the victory at Enoree, to their mountain fastnesses. Ferguson himself, with the main body of his army, followed close upon the heels of Dupoister, determined to retake the prisoners or support him if he should overtake and engage the escaping enemy. Finding that his efforts were fruitless, Fergu- son took post at Gilbertown, near the present Rutherfordton, in North Carolina. From this place he sent a most threaten- ing message, by a paroled prisoner, that if the officers west of the mountains did not lay down their opposition to the British arms he would march his army over, burn and lay waste their country and hang their leaders. " The pursuit by Ferguson of the retiring Americans brought, him so far to the left as to seem to threaten the habitations of the hardy race that occupied and lived beyond the mountains. He was approaching the lair of the lion, for many of the families of the persecuted Whigs had been deposited in this asylum." 55-t OUB NATIONAL JUBILEE. The refugee Whigs received a hearty welcome from their hos- pitable but plain countrymen on Watauga and Nollachucky. The door of every cabin was thrown open and the strangers felt at once assured of kindness, sympathy and assistance. Among the neighbors of Sevier and Shelby the exiles from the Caro- linas and Georgia were at home. Iu this march of the riflemen to the sea we hear of no appro- priation of private property, no incendiarism, no robbery, no insult to non-combatants. To the honor of the troops under Sevier and Shelby, their integrity was as little impeached as their valor. They came back to their distant homes enriched by no spoils, stained with no dishonor ; enriched only by an imperishable fame, an undying renown, andf an unquestionable claim to the admiration and gratitude of their countrymen and of posterity- The results of the campaigns of 1780 and 1781 sensibly affected the measures of the British Ministry, and rendered the American war unpopular in Great Britain, and on the 19th of April, 1783, peace was proclaimed in the American army by the Commander- in-chief, George Washington, precisely eight years from the first effusion of blood at Lexington. For more than that length of time the pioneers of Tenuessee had been in incessant war. On the 10th of October, 1774, their youthful heroes, Shelby and Sevier, flashed their maiden swords at the battle of Keukawa, and with little intermission thereafter were constantly engaged in guarding the settlements or attacking and invading the savage enemy. The gallant and patriotic participation of the mountain men in the 1\ evolutionary struggle under the same men, now become leaders, has been just related. We embalm their memory and their heroic services ; we bow down and do homage to their patriotism and to the majesty of their virtue. It is through them that on this centennial anniversary Tennessee claims an identity with the American Revolution and American independ- ence. And to the Historical Society of our proud State, to the posterity of its pioneer soldiery and to their successors, I beg leave to add the injunction : " Let no mean hope yonr souls enslave, Be independent, generous, brave, Your fathers such example gave And such revere 1" HISTORICAL ADDRESS, BY HON. W. T. AVERY. DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION AT MEMPHIS, TENN. JULY 4th, 187G. My Fellow Countrymen and Country-Women, composing this vast concourse of people — In approaching the performance of the duty which has been assigned me to-day, I do so distrust- ing in no slight degree my ability to fulfill in a manner befit- ting the magnitude and importance of the occasion. And it is a pleasing thought that to-day, at this hour, thn mghout the length and breadth of the land, everywhere in this great Republic of ours on this, our centennial day, this patriotic duty is being performed. So, then, my fellow-citizens of the county of Shelby, you will please be content with the plain recital of such facts and incidents connected with the early history of our county and our city, and the mention of those revered names closely identified with their foundation, as I shall be able crudely and imperfectly to group together in the brief space of time it will be proper to employ in the presenta- tion of them ; I hope, too, it will be borne in mind that in the short time allotted it will be impossible to embrace in this sketch many, very many of the names and incidents it would be both pleasing and profitable to record. The great difficulty which confronts me at the threshold is not the paucity of material, but from the varied historical facts, incidents and names which crowd upon the memory of your historian which to select and which to discard. I wish it was possible that the early history of every name connected with the first settlement of our county and our town could find a place in this imperfect record ; knowing most of them personally as I did, it would be a labor of love to embalm their memories in historic page. But this cannot be done. To my task then. The spot we inhabit to-day is rich in the history of the past. It was upon these bluffs that more than three hundred years ago, not fifty years, 556 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. after that great navigator, Columbus, had lifted from the seas a hidden continent and held out to view a new and undiscov- ered world ; that that wonderful but ill-fated Spaniard, Her- nando DeSoto, discovered our great river and with the crucifix in one hand and the sword in the other, planted upon its savage banks the Christian cross. A little below our city still stand, despite the effacing fingers of time, the remains of the mounds of Cbisca, which history tells us is the name of the village which DeSoto founded upon reaching the river. A little more than one hundred years thereafter, Father Marquette, a missionary, together with an explorer named Joliette, descended the Mis- sissippi in canoes, and from the maps and charts accompanying the history of their explorations, evidently camped for a season upon these bluffs, as they passed along. A few years there- after a French explorer named La Sahe, under a commission from his Government to " perfect the discovery of the Mis- sissippi," built a fort and established the arms of France upon the 4th Chickasaw Bluff. In 1739, Bienville, third Governor of Louisiana, and founder of New Orleans, in his campaign against the Chickasaws, established fort Assumption, and remained the winter here. In 1782 General Gayosco, from whom thebayouthat runs up stream through our city, from its southern to its north- ern limits, takes its name, by authority of the Spanish Govern- ment occupied the bluff, and at the mouth of Wolf river estab- lished Fort Fernandina. In 1803 General, Pike took pos- session of the fort and planted the stars and stripes in place of of the Spanish flag. Some time thereafter General Wilkerson dismantled this fort and established Fort Pickering which stood down near the Jackson Mounds long after my remembrance, and I have often seen boys with their pocket knives picking out the bullets embedded in the timbers of the old block houses of the foit. Shelby county was named in honor of Isaac Shelby, the first Governor of Kentucky, and who, by the side of Sevier, distinguished himself at the battle of King's Mountain. In 1 818, together with General Jackson, he negotiated upon this bluff an advantageous treaty with the Chickasaws, by which were ceded to the United States all the lands in West Ten- nessee, then known as the Chickasaw purchase. ADDRESS W. T. AVEKY. 557 My countrymen, although not covetous of being considered an old man, I have myself seen the red man of the forest, whose primeval home was not a half day's journey on horseback from where we now stand, pushed away across the great river, over to the wilderness of the west, and the native wilds he then in- habited, peopled by a hardy, intelligent and enterprising popu- lation. Flourishing towns and young cities, marts of commerce and centers of civilization and refinement now adorn the places where savage huts then stood. I have personally known every chief magistrate Memphis has ever had (save those appointed by military authority during the war), from Winchester, the first, down to his Honor Judge Flippin, who is helping us celebrate here to-day. I have seen every stately structure that now stands between Pinch and Pickering rise from the earth in their ma- jesty and beauty, monuments, as they are, to the skill, enterprise, energy and public spirit of such citizens as Lemuel Austin, the Saffarans, Charley Jones, the lamented Greenlaws, and many others I might mention, who builded up this young city of ours. And now, having, in a feeble and imperfect manner, presented some of the leading historical features connected with the founda- tion of our county and our city, and made honorable mention of such names as I could bring to memory connected therewith, may we not be pardoned if we pause for a moment on the top of this Centennial Pisgah where we stand to-day, and taking a more extended range of vision, view our promised land. Look at it as it stands mapped out before us and before the world to- day ! From thirteen sparsely populated colonies, with three millions of people, this Centennial day dawned on thirty-eight independent States, some of them young empires in themselves, with forty millions of population. But a little while ago, long within the memory of many who hear me to-day, the star of our empire had scarcely peeped over the blue heights of the Alleghanies in the east. This star, still westward taking its onward way, has gone on, and on, until it has shot across a con- tinent, and to-day shines its glittering sheen in the placid waters of the golden shored Pacific. May we not be pardoned, then, in indulging in a little patriotic gush upon this occasion, espe- 558 OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. cially when We contemplate our wonderful advancement as a people and as a nation, in arts, in arms, in science, in agriculture and the mechanic arts, in inventions and discoveries, in com- merce and navigation, and in internal improvements, with our seventy-three thousand miles of railroads ramifying every por- tion of the Republic ; in everything that goes to make up the greatness and power of a people and a nation. In attestation of which may we not proudly point to the great Centennial Ex- position now spread out in grand review within sound of the old Liberty Bell which one hundred years ago to-day first pealed out its proclamation to the world that a new nation had been born to liberty that day. I say, may we not point with a little exultant pride to the fact that to-day in the front rank of hon- orable competition with all the most favored and enlightened nations of the earth, both great and small, the American States are exhibiting all these industrial and material evidences of wonderful advancement. The Great Pacific Railway, too, stretching from ocean to ocean, tying these States together as with bands of steel. The North united to the South by those natural channels of commerce, the great livers of the land, and the East bound to the West by those other and artificial iron bonds of perpetual union ; this nation is designed as the God of Nature and of Nations too, decreed it ever should be, now and forever, one and inseparable. To the American mind is the civilized world indebted for the two great inventions of this or any other age. It was a Fulton who iirst harnessed steam and drove it to the cars of commerce and to the floating fleets of navigation. In all the rivers of the earth, and in all the seas wherever the flag of commerce floats, and the light of civilization shines, every revolution of the mighty wheels that move the steam monarehs of the deep, and the lesser vessels upon the thousand rivers, both great and small, and every puff of steam that is sent forth from the countless scape pipes, proclaim in thunder tones the genius of a Fulton. Every electric click that flashes upon the thousand wires its myriad messages over the lands and under the seas, throughout the world and around the globe proclaim forever to all peoples the genius, and perpetuate the memory of the immortal Morse. Did any people who have ever lived since creation's dawn and since the morning stars first sang together, have so great cause to be proud of their country and its achievements. The Frenchman when he seeks a home amongst us still loves best the vine-clad hills of France. The Italian, though true and steadfast to his adopted coun- try, each year must renew his vows of love to the land of Colum- bus. The Englishman, full of the glories of his sea-girt isle, in ADDRESS W. T. AVERT. 5.") 9 full, too, of the thought that she is mistress of the seas aud that " Britania rules the waves." The German, coming as he does from the home and birth-place of learning and of science, each returning Mai-Fest rekindles afresh unfading memories of bis Fatherland. Who can chide tbe rugged son of grand old Scotia for cherishing in his heart of hearts a filial devotion to the land of Bruce and of Burns, of Wallace and of Walter Scott ? The Irishman too, eager, as he ever is, to enlist in the wars and fight the battles of his adopted country, never can forget his green isle of the ocean, his shamrock and his shillallah ; and every St. Patrick's Day in the Morning pours out anew the offerings of his heart upon the altar of his native land. All people of all nations who seek an asylum in our midst, though born to a new liberty, and awakened to a new citizenslrip and baptised in a new dispensation, never banish from their recollection the memories of the land that gave them birth. Oh, may we not be pardoned to-day — this hundredth anniversary of our nation's birth — for enkindling afresh upon the altars of our hearts the fires of patriotism and love to " our own, our native land." Our foreign-born brethren of every clime and of every kin- dred join with us everywhere in one universal chorus of devo- tion to this great heritage, the land of our nativity and of their adoption. And in the eloquent language of another : " This glorious land of ours that blooms between the seas, from the northern border of it where God's perpetual bow of peace glori- fies Niagara's cliffs to the sea-girt southern line, where God's gifts make earth almost an Eden of fragrance and beauty ; and from the rock bound Atlantic, where the eastern song of the sea begins its morning music, to the far off Pacific, where the west- ern waters murmur their benediction to our land as the tide goes out beneath the setting sun ; everywhere we feel the inspi- ration of our country and devoutly pray God bless our native land." This Fourth of July is a common heritage ; it belongs to no North, no South, no East, no West. Men of the South as well as men of the North aided in establishing this empire of freedom. It is the united work of both. The South gave to the country him who wrote the charter of our liberties. The South gave to the world a Washington. Let the names of Washington and Jefferson be indissolubly and for- ever linked with those of Hancock, Adams, Franklin. We of the South have an undying glory in our nation's birthright. The great principles that underlie the foundation of our Govern- ment, enunciated by the Fathers of the Republic, established by their swords and cemented by their blood ; those great doctrines of civil liberty and human government, set forth in the unequal* 5 00 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. ed instrument which has been read to-day, are as dear to the South as to the North, and to the North as to the South. They are the great bulwarks upon which we rest as the sheet anchor of our liberties, as a people, and our perpetuity as a government. And now a little about brotherly love. Long be- fore the political differences between the North and the South had culminated in a calamitious war , the same disturbing ele- ment, that Iliad of our woes, now no more, that divided us po- litically had cleft in twain the churches of the living God. That great popular organization, the Methodist Church, for more than thirty years has been divided into two distinct and separate governments, North and South. Thank God this Cen- tennial year will see them again united. Listen to the eloquent and patriotic language of Dr. Duncan, President of Randolph Macon College, who was sent, together with the venerable Lo- vick Pierce and Dr. Garland, Chancellor of Vanderbilt Univer- sity, as a fraternal messenger of peace and unity to the Metho- dist Church North, recently assembled in solemn conference in the City of Baltimore. In speaking of " brotherly love," here is what he says to his brethren of the North : " With this in- spiration in our hearts, and with this cry upon our lips we tear down all hostile barriers, we trample under foot every obstacle to brotherly love ; we consign bitterness and strife to oblivion ; we crush the serpent of discord with our heel, and unite anew all the vast army of American Methodists in one celestial shout." This is the language of a broken brotherhood, the one to the other. Cannot, then, the political and geographical sections — the broken brotherhood — of this Great Republic, severed as they have been in deadly hostility, but now once more united ; since the rainbow of peace now spans the continent ; under the me- ridian splendors of this Centennial sun, adopt the fervid and patriotic language of the inspired spirit of this peace maker of God and the Gospel ? Can we not agree, North and South, to wipe out forever Mason's and Dixon's line ; tear down all hostile bar- riers ; trample under foot every obstacle to brotherly kindness ; consign bitterness and strife to oblivion ; crush out the serpent of discord with our undivided and united heel, and unite anew all the vast army of forty millions of freemen in one Centennial shout : " United in lakes, united in lands, With bonds no dissensions can sever) United in hearts, united in hands — The flag of our Union forever 1 " THE GLOEIOTJS EPOCH. AN ORATION BY HON. B. K. ELLIOTT, delivered at the centennial celebration, at indianapolis, ind., july 4th, 1876. My Countrymen : Other nations and other people celebrate the anniversaries of great events, but Americans only of all the nations of the world celebrate that which commemorates the birth of national freedom and the security of the right of self- government. A nation of freemen greet this day. This day, of all the marked and memorable days in the calendar of time alone presents the great spectacle of freemen gathering to- gether to celebrate the anniversary of their liberty and of their national existence. The prophetic words of one of the great men of one hundred years ago have for a century been fulfilled; for one hundred years " this day haw been kept as the great an- niversary of the nation." But it is more than the anniversary of our national existence and of American freedom; it is the anniversary of the birth of civil and religious liberty. It marks an epoch — and a glorious one — in the history of all mankind. The tones of the bell which a hundred years ago rang out pro- claiming " liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants thereof " swept across the Atlantic, from the new world to the old, awakening there a slumbering spirit yet to be kindled into brighter and more constant glow. All Europe felt the influ- ence, England profited by the lesson of the Revolution, and there now no laws crush religious liberty and no Puritan or Pilgrim flees from persecution. All the countries of Europe have been benefited by the influence of American liberty ; even Kussia, despotic Russia, has been touched by the influence " of this so potent spell." All mankind have an interest in the event which this day and this vast assembly commemorate. The subhme principles which found form in the immortal instrument just read, affect not only 562 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. one nation or one race, but all nations and all races. That de- claration gave cause for rejoicing to many nations, and it shall be a source of good to generations yet unborn. Its influence is not confined to one country, it extends to all countries; its influence is not narrowed to one age, it will reach all ages. Well may the great body of the people of all nations join with us in this day's rejoicing. And many do. Many voices and many hearts in other lands than ours give this day glad and grateful greeting. One hundred years of civil and religious liberty. Exalting reflection ! For a century an independent nation; for one hun- dred years a free people. America presents this day to the world a people who, for a century, have exercised the right of self-government. Prosperous and progressive has been the ca- reer of our Republic under the government of the people by the people. Among all the nations of the world no parallel can be found. In liberty excelling all, in prosperity advancing more rapidly, in enlightenment and civilization in its noblest form, surpassing all. Republics in name there have been, but repub- lics in little else but name. Unlike all others, ours has been and is a republic in substance and reality. Our people are free in matters of religion and conscience, free in matters of govern- ment. Not, indeed, the absolute liberty which lives in unlicen- sed passions or unrestrained desires, and dies in anarchy, but liberty regulated and jDrotected by law. Protected and secured by laws originating not with law-makers claiming the preroga- tive because of the accident of birth, but by laws established by themselves. Ours is that firm form of liberty, liberty sesured by law, which alone is worth the high estate of free-born men. A mighty people with grateful hearts rise up to welcome this day ; a people coming from many lands and representing many nationalities. This day joining in one purpose, uniting in one common cause are men " native here and to the manor born, and men from the blood of warring Europe sprung." Diverse in creeds, various in nationalities, but united in one thought, the love of liberty, and breathing one prayer, that for the perpetuity of our government. This day joins in one common bond with ORATIOX — B. K. ELLIOTT. 5(\'o us men from Germany — land of great-minded, big-sotiled men ; from Ireland — " famous in poetry and in song ; " from France, land of the generous and the brave. Ah, France! Franco! name ever dear to Americans ! Ally, benefactor arid friend in the dark hours of the direst distress ! "Welcome to our shores and to our hearts, ye sons of our ancient allies. The memories of the days when the illustrious of your land joined arms with the noble of ours, live in the hearts of the Frenchmen of the present. "We behold the evidence in the pageant you have pre- sented in honor of this day. Lafayette ! Rochambeau ! How closely are these glorious names interwoven with the loved and honored of our own land. Linked with the beloved of our own country their memories shall never perish while American lib- erty endures The men of Europe who come to the Western World, moved by the desire for freedom, and impressed with the importance of the preservation of our government, shall find a hearty welcome and happy homes. Hail, all hail, ye seekers of liberty ! The purpose which animates those who seek our shores is a noble one, and they are true men— "Men, my brothers, men, the workers, ever reaping something new; Tet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men aie widened with the process of the suns." Freemen salute this day and honor its associations with feel- ings of lofty pride and heartfelt gratitude. Proud of our country and her institutions, grateful to the God of nations, and to the men who were His instruments in securing the great blessings which are our most glorious heritage, the voices of all good men should, even as the voices of many waters, blend in anthems of thanksgiving and praise. It is just, it is eminently jnst, that we this day render grateful tribute and sincere homage to the memories of the great men of the early years of the historic century just closed. Men pure, brave, just men, always " God's most potent instruments In working out pure intents." Other nations have owed their origin to love of war, to am- bition, and to thirst for power. Other nations have been founded to advance the fortunes of military chieftains, or to promote the 504 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. desire of selfish ambition. Ours alone owes its birth to a pure and exulted spirit of liberty. No unhallowed, no sordid, no de- basing influences were present at the creation of our nation. The spirit of liberty crossed the Atlantic with the Pilgrim fathers ; it was nurtured by pure and lofty hearts in the wilder- ness of the new and then almost unknown world. It grew with the country's increasing years ; and of that spirit was the noble form of American government conceived and born. God fa- vored America. How chaste, how pure the source from which your great Re- public springs. The men of this generation — the men of ail coming time — will realize the truth of the Puritan preacher's utterance made more than two hundred years ago, that " God sifted a whole nation that he might send a choice grain over into this wilderness." Little did the humble preacher of Dor- chester dream of the vast, the immense harvests of which that grain contained the germ. The germ of liberty found congenial soil upon the rocky and sterile coast of New England. They wiio came flying from Britain's shore brought with them the spirit which found broad domain in the vast extent of the new world, and where, by the blessing of God, it shall ever remain, pervading, animating, and vivifying a mighty people. For more than one hundred years the colonists, retaining their religious liberty, yet rendered loyal allegiance to the mother country ; throughout all these years, however, cherish- ing and fostering the spirit of liberty, " eternal spirit of the chainless mind." At length, in the fullness of time, came the men of 1776, heroes in courage, sages in wisdom, ; in their lives and char- acters pure and stainless. Illustrious men ! Nations of the old world have had their chieftains, their leaders, their phil- osophers eminent in wisdom and brave in action, but only America has had chieftains and leaders who to all other virtues added pure and incorruptible patriotism, untainted by self- interest and untarnished by sordid ambition. In honoring this day we honor the founders of our Republic; not alone our Nation's benefactors, but benefactors of all man- kind. " The whole earth is the sepulchre of illustrious men," OKATION — B. K. ELLIOTT. 5G5 was said of old. The whole earth is the tomb of America's illustrious dead, and their monuments the grateful remem- brance of men which shall perish only with the death of time. Often and often have the words of praise been spoken of the founders of the Republic, and I but repeat what has many, many times been better said. But it is fit that we this day think and speak of the patriot sages and soldiers heroes of the Revolution. It would be b'ase ingratitude to omit to speak of them. Let this day, and every recurring anniversary of our in- dependence, find their names and deeds fresh and strong in the memory and gratitude of our people. It is just, it is fitting that throughout all the years of our coming history, as often as the anniversary of our independence shall recur, words of praise should be spoken of those who gave to us the day we celebrate and the cause for our rejoicing. Not, indeed, that eulogy is needed, not that ; not that, for each advancing step of time shall add new luster to their names. Each step in man's elevation shall freshen and make more sacred their memories. " The past, with all its glories, its elevating and ennobling memories, is secure." A stable, a beneficent and a free gov- ernment, is ours. The future concerns xis most. Narrow, in- deed, the mind, selfish and dead the heart that cares not for future. Vain and fruitless the struggles and sufferings of the brave men who gave up home, comfort and lives for their country, if advancing generations shall be careless of their country's future. A vast domain is ours. Greater, grander or fairer the sun in all his rounds looks not down upon. Never to man was given a territory so great as ours, never upon a nation were nature's gifts so lavishly bestowed. The wealth of earth rewards the labor of the miner, the fertile soil and genial climate give to the tiller of the soil bounteous reward, the waters of rushing streams furnish power to the ponderous wheels of our great manufacto- ries, the immense fields of fuel, the uncounted acres of coal will supply for myriads of ages the wants of the steam engine, that mighty agency of progress. Our broad and deep rivers bear our products to the ocean, and the sails of our ships, whitening the 160 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEK. waters of all seas, carry tliem to every quarter of the globe. All that man could wish or nature give is ours. These things, great as they are, will avail us nothing without a strong, a stable, and a free government. It is much the fashion to vaunt our Anglo-Saxon race and to praise our climate and our country as liberty-inspiring, and it is true that our race is one well calculated to promote and foster republican institutions. There are those who loudly proclaiuT^ that our land and our race make for us a destiny, and that des- tiny is always to be that of freedom. Let us not be deceived. Race, climate and country of themselves neither make nor pre- serve the liberties of nations. The people themselves do this. The influence of country, climate and race may aid, but they only aid. On each man, every man, depends in some measure the perpetuity of our free government. There is no destiny for men or nations, save that which they achieve for themselves. There may be fortunate accidents, but how foolish the man who grounds his hopes of success upon the fortunes of chance. Firm adherence to just principles and conscientious discharge of the duties of free citizenship will give, and this only can give, to our Republic that destiny which lies within our grasp. Where laws are made and institutions moulded by hereditary rulers men may be passive and silent, but where, as in our Republic, citizens are themselves law makers and institution framers, their silence is dangerous, their inaction death. Thought, reflection, care and activity are the burdens which citizens must bear who would make sure of the reward of free- and prosperous government. The burdens as conrpared with the rewards is as nothing. On this great day which marks the opening of the second century of civil and religious liberty, it is the duty of all free- men to pledge themselves anew to their cause and their country. That turning to the past, to the lives of those who made this day the most memorable of history, we may say " Grow great by their example and put on The dauntless spirit of resolution." Let not the sun which shall rise a century hence cast its beams ORATION B. K. ELLIOTT. 567 upon a generation which shall find our institutions less pure, less strong, less free than we this day receive them. If this should be so, then we of the present have not " deserved well of the Republic." We shall but illy have deserved the blessings of this day if we are content to heed only the present and look not to the future. There is something more de- manded of us this day thau gratitude aud joy; it is required at our hands that we look to the dangers of the future ; that we resolve to know our full duty, and to "quit ourselves like men" in its performance. It is our high duty on this day of jubilee to give grave thought to the dangers which menace all repre- sentative governments. It is the part of prudence aud wisdom to look in advance, and not rush upon dangers unawares. If it be known from what quarter danger is to be expected, ef- fective measures for defense can be taken. The chart of the mariner gives information which enables him to escape danger- ous rocks and shoals, and the lessons of history and the teach- ings of experience yield such information as will enable the citizens of a free country to avert the dangers which lie iu their future. What, then, fellow-citizens, are the dangers to which our system of government is exposed ? No subject can be more worthy of careful consideration, more deserving of solemn and earnest thought. From what quarter will these dangers come, and in what form and guise ? From foreign invasion we have less, far less, to fear than governments less free. Free people are ever brave, and as against foreign foes always invincible. Against such dangers would Hash "Millions of flaming swords." If ruin shall ever come — which God avert— it will come from internal causes — from ourselves. Factious party spirit may bring dangers, masses acting in concert and in great organiza- tions will do things from which most of its own members would shrink with horror. The individual oonscience and will are lost or weakened in the crowd of minds, just as an indi- vidual becomes indistinguishable in a great throng of persons. Party pride and partisan enmities often overcome considera- 568 OOK NATIONAL JUBILEE. tions of a higher character. Led by strong party attachment, influenced by hatred of j)arty opponents, men have done dan- gerous and evil things. Blind, unreasoning obedience to party and party leaders is perilous, and mad partisan zeal a danger- ous thing. Parties are essential to the existence of a free government. The danger is not because there are parties, but because men lose their individuality in party. Parties are not an evil, but a good. The evil is not that men will act with parties, but that men care only for party success, even though it comes at the expense of the general good. The desire for party success and the punishment of party enemies at every hazard has been one of the distinctive evils in the history of all nations where oppos- ing parties have existed. Men are too apt to surrender their own judgments into the keeping of party leaders, and party leaders too often care only to advance their own personal affairs, or to gratify their own ambition. Danger from party there can never be if men will be tolerant; if the parties are founded on great principles and the individual members will think and reason for themselves. He who does not do this, but blindly and unthinkingly yields to party behests, even though he lives in a free government, is not a free man. Parties there must ever — and ought ever — be in a free government. Nothing could be more disastrous than that the affairs of gov- ernment would not be agitated, that they should stagnate. It is well that there is conflict of opinion, and that therefore parties espouse conflicting views, else there would be no such thing as progression. Xo it is to be esteemed a reproach that a citizen attaches himself to a party. If he did not he would be of little service in public affairs. Acting alone he could accomplish no- thing. It is indeed, the duty of every citizen to interest him- self in the affairs of government, and if need be, act witt the party organization. If such there be, which will, in his own judgment; best advance the welfare of the country. There should be times when citizens should forget party and be active for the preservation of the integrity of the counh'y and prompt to repel dangers. There should be days, and this is one of tb.erp. when party ties should be shaken off and all should ORATION — B. K. ELLIOTT. 569 come together as united freemen, sinking all other considera- tions in the harmonious devotion to the whole country. To-day Ave are no party men, to day we are not of different nationali- ties, we are all, all Americans. Republics as well as monarchies may be governed too much. Legislation cannot remedy all evils. Too much legislation may bring danger, serious danger. Public matters only are fit sub- jects for public legislation. That which concerns private classes or private interests alone should never be the subject of public legislation. If it should become so the temptation which would environ legislators would multiply to a frightful extent, for favoritism, unjust discrimination, and corruption would prevail. It is vain to look to legislation as a panacea for all troubles. Over government tends to tyrranny, and there may be tyrranny in republics as well as in monarchies. General legislation can never take the place of family and domestic government, it can never make a great people. Education, training, instruction in homes, schools and churches are far more potent for good than legislation can possibly be. When offices become temptations, then dangers will ensue from the machinations of placemen. The pay for official ser- vices should be such as shall justly compensate, but, not make rich. The salaries should be fixed and certain, without any con- tingent perquisites ; the position should be shorn of all oppor- tunities for speculation. The duties should be certain and plain- ly defined. If temptations are taken from official paths, then shall " saint-seducing gold" have less influence on our elections, and we shall have a purer administration of affairs. Offices should be desired not because they are profitable, but because they are honorable. Pure elections, free from all corrupting influences, are of ut- most importance. The fountain of power is the ballot, and the source should be pure, for if it be not that which flows from it will be evil and impure. Rigid laws well enforced and small polls will secure pure elections ; and then indeed shall we have " The freeman casting with unpurchased hand The vote that shakes the turrets of the land." The purity of the ballot is of the first importance, and the 570 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. things which endanger it are those against winch all should combine. The purity of the ballot is above all party considera- tions, and can never, while there is honor in man, be justly made a party question. The current of public opinion moves and controls the ma- chinery of government, If that machinery moves properly and efficiently the current must be steady and strung ; if it be slug- gish and inefficient, the wheels stop ; if it be violent and tur- bulent, the machinery is destroyed. After all, then, the chief danger is from the people themselves. If they are apathetic, the machinery will have no strength ; if they are turbulent, the machinery will be destroyed with violence. The question of government at last comes home to men's business and bosoms. Its greatest danger is there. The considerations I have sug- gested lead to a wide field of thought, but time admonishes that into it I must no further go. Safety is in the people. The people, after calm consideration, are always safe. The evil is, that they do not always reflect. No premeditated crime was ever committed by an intelligent people ; no great body of enlightened citizens ever united in a base and cowardly act. The monstrous atrocities of the French revolution were not the acts of the people, but of a faction of a few hundred out of many millions. Enlightened and thoughtful citizens perpetuate representa- tive governments, and although danger may come, though perils may threaten against a vigilant and enlightened people, they will never prevail. For a full century the power of the people has preserved our Constitution through many dangers. The times are more favorable, the people better fitted for self-gov- ernment , than they were a century ago. We are the ancients of the earth ; not those who lived thous- ands of years ago. The world is older, not younger. The human race has grown older, and the men of to-day are of a more ancient race than those who lived in the early days of creation. The history of the race, full of lessons of deep import and of solemn warning, is open to us. The errors of the past we can see and avoid. Unlike the republics of early ages, we have for our guidance the history of those which have risen and ORATION— B. K. ELLIOTT. 571 fallen. The sun of civilization is now towards its highest point* and is advancing higher and higher. The greater the civilizu tion the more widely knowledge is diffused, the more sure and strong republican governments become. The wiser and better the people grow, the wiser and better shall be democratic gov- ernment. Each succeeding day dawns upon a more elevated civilization, which adds permanency to free government. Before the advancing, all-potent force of civilization, superstition and ignorance fall, and more nearly does man approach perfection and become better fitted for self-government. As long as civilization shaU advance, so long shall a represen- tative government grow in strength and usefulness. The prom- ise is bright, the dangers lessen as enlightenment and wisdom prevail. The tendency of civilization is onward; there are no indications of halting, no evidences of retrogression. Never since the historic period was civilization so great or knowledge so general as now. Never since the world began was the on- ward stride so sure, so steady, and so rapid. The future shad- ows success to free government, and gives strong promise of the universal spread of free institutions. We have just reason for high hope. The superstitions which enthralled are fast fall- ing, the bigotry and intolerance which enchained are growing weaker, and the ignorance which darkened and crushed free thought has been conquered. That republics in earlier and ruder ages have fallen does n< it prove that ours, too, shall fall. The times are vastly changed; men are greatly different. The useful arts engage the attention of men. G reat talents are devoted to the sciences. Great men labor to advance the good of their fellow-men. The early re- publics existed in ages when war was esteemed the noblest and almost the only honorable profession, and when warlike exploits only secured power and fame. All this has changed, peaceful pursuits confer high honor, labor is honorable, and the arts and sciences crown with honor those who succeed in them. Many suns have risen since the day of our*independence, and each has gone down upon a people older in days, improved in edu- cation, and therefore more capable of self -government, More than a century ago Virginia — grand old Virginia with 572 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. all her faults, grand, glorious old Virginia still — spurning the mott ), " God save the king," gave to the world the more noble one of " God save the liberties of America." Be that our prayer forevermore. Be it not the prayer of a discordant and dis- united people, but of a united and fraternal people. Moved by the grand, holy ; aid hallowing memories which rise from the early years of tli3 historic cantury just closed, let ah Americans invoke the blessing of God upon our country and her institu- tions. Freemen! catch ye the inspiration of the day, join in the glad and sounding anthems of praise, swell the mighty refrain, unite in the prayer, "God save the liberties of America." CENTENNIAL ADDEESS. BY HON. GEO. W. C. JOHNSTON, MAYOR OF CINCINNATI, AT CINCINNATI, OHIO. DELIVERED JULY 4th, 1876. Ladies and Gentlemen, — More than twenty years have elapsed since a general demonstration of this nature has been had among us ; but to-day, Cincinnati, ever responsive to patriotic calls, moves with one common impulse in celebrating the birthday of the Nation. Thanks to the managers, the procession of this forenoon has been magnificent. "We meet in this building, ere its removal, to give place to the elegant Springer Music Hall, to further commemorate the deeds of the men of 1776, and to make particular mention of those who signed that grand Charter of Freedom, the Declaration of Inde- pendence. They were men of high thoughts and boldness of character. Charles Carroll, not to be misunderstood as to identity, added after his name, "of Carrollton." John Hancock, after signing in his large, bold hand, said, throw- ing down the pen : " There it is. I guess John Bull can read that without spectacles." These men signed not for that day alone, but for all time and for all people. It is the day we celebrate. In this land, dedicated by these men to freedom, the foreign- born and the native citizen enjoy equal rights and privileges. While the foreign-born retains his early recollections of his first home across the seas, and many of the manners and customs there- of, he yet unites, heart and soul, in doing honor to this day, with those native and to the manner born. One hundred years has wrought great changes in the appearance 574 OUR NATIONAL JUBILKK. of this land, but it has not dimmed our love of liberty or hatred of oppression. The spread of intelligence preserves us. A celebrated divine, in an eloquent passage, commending the education of the masses, said : " "We must educate ; we must educate, or we must perish by our own prosperity. If we do not, short will be our race from the cra- dle to the grave." This spirit survives among us — the evidence of that fact is here. If intelligence preserves patriotism and virtue, Cincinnati makes her showing in the school children before us. We are, therefore, celebrating this day with an intelligent un- derstanding of the magnitude of the benefits and blessings we enjoy. THE PAST CENTURY REVIEWED. AN ORATION BY GEN. DURBIN WARD. DELIVERED AT EXPOSITION HALL, CINCINNATI, OHIO, JULY 4TH, 1876 American Independence is one hundred years old. Since the morning stars sang together, a century so grand, so crowded with events, so full of progress, has not closed its record. As heirs to the glory of our ancestors we proudly recall their deeds. From youth to age we have looked forward to the consummation of this grand event, and our eyes now behold the utmost fruition of our longing. Inspired with the memories of the noble past of our history we look forward with assured faith to the sublime future of our country. Struggling with the emotions of this hour, words are shadows of thought, and can but faintly express the burning conceptions of the soul. The face, the eye, the whole inspired mien instinct with elo- quent silence must supplement the faltering lispings of the tongue. But looking upward in humble faith to the Great Father, speech and silence are alike worthy of' this solemn occasion. So far as words can illustrate this epoch, what can they do more appropriate than recall some of the great movements of the past and contem- plate, as though it were already here, the grandeur yet in store for America. In reviewing the past century, an American cannot fail to re- member that even the existence of this Continent was made known to the Old World by a discovery so sublime in heroic adventure, as to make America from the first an object of profound and all- pervading interest. The high motives and daring courage which settled our shores also inspired respect and wonder, and the hardy purity of the colonists in their new home was everywhere the theme of praise. But, even after all this, Europe was taken by surprise when the Colonies declared their Independence. That the government to which the Mother Country had subjected them was not, a galling tyranny, though in many respects oppressive, was well 576 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. known. It was not the cankering chain of political servitude against which they rebelled. They made a broader assertion of the sacred rights of freedom, and staked their lives and fortunes on the wager of battle. An effort to throw off the oppressive rule of Great Britain would have won them sympathy. But the grand canons of principle they formulated and announced fired with enthusiasm the dawning spirit of liberty. The Declaration was the voice of one crying in the wilderness: the forerunner of a new political era. And, though we have heard the story a thou- sand times, it still enthuses the patriot, and may the day never come when it does not ! Cold reason may be enough to guide the head of the scientific thinker, but the burning flame of a holy pas- sion ought to fill and rouse the hearts of the people ! The rising generation must glow with the same patriotic ardor that nerved their forefathers. Behold in the feeble little city of Philadelphia, having a popu- lation of a few thousand merchants and artisans, but the metro- polis, small as it was, of two millions poor, struggling agriculturists, scattered in the wilderness! Behold the immortal Fifty-six, in the broad sunlight, uncovered before their only earthly masters, the people, with the voice of their authority, " proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof ! " The stern countenance of resolve, and the earnest, thundering shouts of approval speak a nation into life by the word of their power. There stand the great apostles of the people and their cause ; the venerable Franklin, who had snatched the lightning from heaven ; the youthful Jefferson, whose electric pen was ablaze with the lightning of genius ; and there, too, are the courtly Hancock, the chivalrous but trembling form of Carroll, and there stands the boldest spirit of them all, the impetuous and elocpient Adams, with Sherman, and Lee, and Morris, and Livingston, and Wythe, and the whole immortal group around him, ready to do or die at their country's bidding. It is a scene worthy of the greatest pencil, and presents even to the imagination a picture no other event in his- tory can surpass. Then followed the long and dreary struggle, the hopes and fears, the victories and defeats, the patriotism aud treason at home, the slow recognition and the generous aid from abroad, the unfaltering, ORATION — GEN. DURBIN WARD. 577 patient, enduring Washington, with his Fabian warfare, his coun- try's confidence, and the cabals against him — Green, Gates, Sumter, Marion, Putnam, Paul Jones, our heroes at home ; and from abroad, Lafayette, Kosciusko, Steuben and DeKalb, rise upon the eye till the whole vision is filled with the gorgeous panorama of the Revolution. The homely wisdom of Congress, and the devo- tion of the people amid all their privations and sufferings, form a noble background and have justly gained for them the love and admiration of posterity. When independence was achieved, the victory was only half won. We were free from the yoke of England, but we had no constitution of Government. The articles of confederation were only a rope of sand, and it was at once apparent that the States would soon be " dissevered, discordant, belligerent," unless some better organized and permanent system of confederation could be devised. Union must be made the palladium of liberty. Patriot- ism, fortitude, and courage had conquered for us liberty at the point of the sword; it remained for conciliation and wisdom to secure it by constitutional guarantees. True, the elemented ideas of personal freedom were as old as the common law or the English language. We had borrowed much, too, from the recent legislation of the mother country. We had the State organizations which had kept alive the right of self-government, and afforded a type for the general government of the Union. But after all the United States, as a Republic, had no fundamental law. The traditions of Government had given the mother country an unwritten con stitution, but our nation was without traditions of Government. Our fathers felt, therefore, that they must establish a written constitution, and no less then the serenest wisdom was competent to the task. Some of our most thoughtful men were Ministers of the Confederation at foreign courts, and their services lost in the Federal Convention. Franklin, Adams, Jefferson and Jay were abroad, though Franklin and Jay returned in time to give efficient aid, the one in the Convention, and the other with his potent pen. The remaining great leaders, with Washington at their head, convened and framed our present admirable Federal Constitution. It was ratified by Conventions of the people in the several States, each for itself. No one can read the debates 578 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. of the several Conventions, or the statesmanlike articles of the Federalist without feeling pride in the learning and sagacity of the men who laid the foundations of our Government. Faults the Constitution may have — and what human production has not; but an instrument so wisely balanced as to preserve liberty and secure national greatness at the same time over so vast a territory, must be the work of no mean hands. And who can doubt that it will secure popular rights and national integrity for many ages yet to come ? It would not be fitting to pass from the Revolutionary period to review the whole political history of the country. But we may pause to express our gratitude that when the country needed the services of men able to rule her destinies they have not been wanting. Washington, who led the armies and presided in the Federal Convention, lived to inaugurate the new Government and leave to future times the noblest example of heroic virtue and statemanship, united with social and domestic purity, which history affords for the instruction of mankind. It was fortunate, too, that the principal actors, if we except Franklin, lived to aid, by precept and act, in organizing wisely the Government in all its branches under the Constitution they had framed. Its friends administered the new Government. The ideas of Madison, Hamil- ton, Jefferson, Marshall and the other great spirits found their way into laws and financial systems, and judicial decisions, until the constitutional foundations of the Government were laid deep and strong in the popular affections. And ever since, through Webster and Jackson and Lincoln, to say nothing of others scarcely less great, when a master hand was needed to seize the helm in the storm, it came at the call of the people. When the Revolution began the population of the country was something less than three millions, and was thinly distributed over thirteen Colonies, between the Atlantic and the Alleghanies. This population was made up mainly of British and German emigrants and their descendants, and of African slaves. But almost all the nations of Europe were, to some extent, represented among the settlers in the Colonies. The establishment of the new Govern- ment gave the country great reputation abroad and prompted active emigration to our shores. This emigration would have ORATION — GEN. DUItBIN \V.\i;i>. .»7! been immensely greater had not the wars of the French Revolution engrossed Europe and offered employment to its people, at home, while its industries were stunted and crippled by the desolating tread of its battling hosts. Finally America was involved, too, and such was the waste of population and resources during these long and terrible struggles that it was felt on both sides of the Atlantic. Population had, however, even during these wars, flowed over tbe Alleghanies and reached the Lakes, tbe Gulf, and the Mississippi. State after State had been added to tbe Union, and the United States bad already come to be recognized among the Powers of the earth as the Great Republic. But peace and industry being once more restored in Europe, emigrants rushed to our shore by millions, until the surging tide of population poured over hill and valley, sweeping the wilderness from its path and dotting river and Lake shore, savanna and prairie, with cities, villages, mills and factories, and covering the broad land with farms and workshops till the little sea-girt colonial dependencies have swelled into a mighty nation, whose longitude is from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and whose bosom beats in pride at the gate of the tropics and on the arctic circle. If the Old World had been astonished at the success of our war of independence, how much more was it astonished at the success of our Republic ! Even the most hopeful friends of liberty looked with doubt and misgiving to the future. But not the wildest dreamer ever fancied that in one hundred years the three millions of poor, scattered colonists would be a powerful nation of forty-three millions of freemen, whose commercial metropolis should rival the proudest cities of the Old World, and whose resources and prosperity should be absolutely unrivalled in the world's history ! To say that all this great, social and industrial progress is the result of our political institutions would be to praise them over- much. Proud as we justly are of our form of government, and much as it has done to perfect the rights of the citizen and clothe him with the free dignity of manhood, our immense success is largely due to other causes. A redundant population in Europe, belonging to the noblest race of the human family, sought new fields of enterprise, and found them in the New World. North America, naturally rich in every element of material greatness, 580 OTJR NATIONAL JUBILEE. needed but the Briarean hands of European industry to burst into all the teeming grandeur of Christian civilization. The liberality of our Government and the boundless natural resources of our country invited alike to our shores the liberal man of letters and the hardy son of toil, and under the protecting aegis of liberty of thought and freedom of labor our political and material great- ness has been achieved. It could hardly have been expected that any people should pass at one bound from all the political ideas of an old system into all the conceptions of a new one. Nor could it be expected that so many nationalities, and two widely diverse races, when planted together in a country new to them all, would quietly and harmo- niously coalesce into one people. The vestiges of monarchic opin- ions lingered under republican institutions, and the old antagonisms of nations and races could not but smoulder in the bosom of society. Indeed, it is a marvel that the conscious supremacy of law could so well hold in check so many elements of discord. It could not be done at all, except for the elemental excellence of our constitu- tional balance of government, added to the high-toned intelligence of our people, and, not least, to the ample scope our wide territory gives for rival competing opinions to come into collision without engendering Revolutionary frenzy. The strifes of contending po- licies, the jealousies of the foreign and native populations, and the conflicts of constitutional theories have all been harmonized with- out serious disturbance. No internal causes of discord proved too strong for peaceful adjustment except that broad divergence of social system as old as the civil wars of England and deep-rooted as the difference between servile and free labor. Wider and wider grew this divergence ; sterner and more intense became this strug- gle, until the fires of " the irrepressible conflict " could be quenched only in blood. But when that awful day did come, and nothing was left but the arbitrament of the sword, the cause of liberty and progress, the cause of the Union, found loyal hearts to love and strong arms to defend. Again, as of old, the Republic was tri- umphant. That system of labor borrowed from the same benighted past in which was nurtured the divine right of kings, and which was at war equally with the rights of industry and the spirit of the age, fell to rise no more forever. And the Union, though it ORATION — GEN. DURBIN WARD. 581 had tottered to its base, as the smoke of the battle drifted away, again arose upon the admiring gaze of the world, not a star in its flag erased, and its silver bands of equality among all the people, and perpetual Union among all the States welded firmer and shin- ing brighter from the furnace through which they had passed. But nations are not isolated aggregations of men. They are members of the same family. Contemporaneously with our Rev- olution other events of vast moment were occurring in other coun- tries. These events, as well as those in our country, were not spon- taneous, but the outgrowth of what had preceded. Omitting to dwell upon the influence of ancient ideas, or the examples of an- cient nations, or the spirit of old religious systems, several very striking occurrences had prepared the way for new political and social systems. Feudalism had decayed, and great kingdoms been consolidated on its ruins in most parts of Europe. Gunpowder had modelled anew the art of war, and the growth of commerce was fast putting modern taxation in the place of ancient feudal exactions. Luther had crippled the power of ecclesiastical supremacy, and the Great Rebellion in England had sapped the foundations of abso- lutism while the Revolution of 1688 had made England's crown the gift of England's people. In France and Germany the seeds of future convulsion had been sown by a powerful school of philos- ophers, and although the people as yet lay groaning under the weight of aristocratic effeminacy and corruption, the spirit of revolu- tion, political, religious and social was everywhere ripe. The two continents were acting on each other. The American Revolu- tion gave England for the first time a responsible ministry. For years Lord North, at the command of the king, defied the will of the English people and carried on war against the rebellious colonies, after all but the obstinate sovereign saw that their con- quest was hopeless and sighed for peace. When public clamor at last compelled the resignation of North and the recognition of our Independence, the king's supremacy was gone except in name, and the premier — made and unmade by the breath of the people — ■ became the real sovereign of England. Ministries and policies have since yielded to the demand of the governing nation, and in a kingdom where once the sovereign, " ruling by the grace of God," attainted a member of Parliament, removed a judge or imprisoned 582 OUIl NATIONAL JUBILEE. a jury, at his lawless pleasure, uo being has dared since our Revolution to veto the humblest act of Parliament, or retain against the popular will the most cherished minister. In France the effect of our success was electric. Franklin was half-wor- shipped by the French people, and the author of the Declaration of Independence witnessed the storming of the Bastile. Old France was gone and new France was born in the throes of the stormiest revolution that ever drenched a continent in blood. That revolu- tion snatched thrones from their hoary base and threw them from nation to nation as pawns in the game of conquest. It plucked mitres from heads on which sanctity had been laid by infallible hands, and played with the holy things of the church as children play with baubles. It wrested the suffering people from the grip of faithless kings, blase nobles, and irreligious priests. That its violence was unreasoning and its vengeance bloodthirsty, no fair- minded man can deny. That the long series of wrongs, oppres- sions, corruptions and impieties which provoked it were without parallel in modern Europe, is equally beyond denial. That it did not accomplish all the friends of liberty and progress hoped from it, must also be admit! ed. But that France and Europe were waked by it from a nightmare of regal and ecclesiastical tyranny, can admit of no question. As the fires of the French Revolution consumed the painted mask of hj'pocrisy and falsehood by which truth had been concealed, the people leaped up trem- bling with rage and bewildered by the new light that blazed in the face of the world. But that real progress has resulted is attested by achievements in this century, the proudest in the history of the race. All over Europe the two great revolutions in the New World and in the Old opened fresh prospects for the develop- ing masses, and enthroned new ideas of popular liberty and social culture. People began to be recognized as the sources of power, and kings as the servants of peoples. Constitutional government has taken the place of absolutism, and freedom of thought the place of regal and priestly infallibility. Important as these political changes were to the people of Europe, to us they were significant chiefly from the social and industrial changes for which they opened the way. Despotic government is neither the handmaid of industry nor the promoter ORATION — GEN. DURBIN WARD. 583 of social progress. A sense of individual power strengthens the humblest. While the long wars of the French Revolution checked the growth of population, the freer spirit everywhere arising in the laboring classes tended to cultivate industry ; and the increase of commerce and manufactures which followed these wars vastly increased the wealth and population in most countries of Europe, and especially in Great Britain and Germany, whence most of our immigrants come. If we turn from the political field of action to that wider and even more potential realm wherein ideas, not armies nor statute-books rule ; if we contemplate society instead of govern- ment, and consider progress as the ultimate aim of human organiza- tion, how immeasurably grand is the field opened by a review of the last century ! Into whatever region of thought we choose to enter ; into whatever class of culture we extend our inspection ; into whatever depths of science we seek to delve, what century can compare in achievement with that just ended ? In the field of learning much work had already been done, for all true knowledge is a growth. From the immemorial past ideas had been grafted upon perceptions and systems upon ideas, until great advancement had been made in religion, government, law, science, literature and art. All along through the ages one accumulation after another had been made in knowledge. But the splendor of this centennial century in Europe and America stands alone. If time allowed we might point out the progress of natural science, political economy, ethnology, biblical criticism, social science and speculative philosophy. In the very year of our declaration the discovery of Oxygen and the publication of the wealth of nations did more to change the future industries of the world than can be awarded to the work of any preceding century. The discovery of Oxygen is the Novum Organum of Physics, and t has supplied a solvent that makes nature give up her inmost secrets to the uses of man. The " Wealth of Nations " was the Novum Organum of economical science, and though political economy has been inaptly called the " dismal science," no branch of knowledge has done more for the every day needs of the people. With these two great advances in knowledge added to the proclamation in our count n of the sovereignty of the people, 584 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. a new era began throughout the Christian world. The Copcrnican system, and the discovery of America, and Newton's law of gravitation, and Harvey's circulation of the blood, and the Reforma- tion, had each opened the way on a grand scale for the new age, and with those brawniest arms of civilization, the printing press and steam as the servants of the new ideas, the whole spirit of society was changed. The age became practical. Public opinion became a ruling power. Comforts and wealth were diffused by every-day knowledge. The newspaper became a necessity. The ease and rapidity of travel made the world one people, and the constant interchange of sentiments and ideas uprooted old conservatisms and urged on the car of progress. The people are better clothed and fed — better lodged and edu- cated. Sanitary science and medical skill have almost banished from the earth those fierce scourges which often decimated nations. Labor is better paid ; charities abound, and society is the willing guardian of the feeble and helpless. So liberal ideas have taken hold of the masses in Europe and America. Religious persecution has almost disappeared. The brotherhood of man is a popular sentiment. Freedom of opinion is almost conceded to be a right. The relations of the sexes are softened and purified. The husband no longer beats his wife as a legal right, or keeps a mistress without a blush. Kindness governs children and servants instead of physical chastisement. The rigor of legal punishments is relaxed, and the gallows is nearly obsolete. The whole face of society is changed. But these changes have brought with them their dangers. The altered character of war and the perfection of its implements tend to the strengthening of powerful nations at the expense of the weak, and worse than all enable organized government to wield a stronger arm, and consequently help power to become the agent of tyranny. So the almost boundless influence, and the reckless licentiousness of the newspaper press endanger the morals of society. The tendency of commerce, trade and manufactures to congregate the people in huge factories, shops and cities, deteriorates their health and moral stamina, and threatens the future manhood and womanhood of the people, from the con- finement of both sexes in those hot-beds of excitement and disease ORATION GEN. DUBBIN WARD. 585 which large cities, more or less, always are. All this is painfull}' apparent in the decrease in the birth of sturdy children. But after making all allowances, the general result is in favor of the present over the past. The social progress of the world in the last century is actual, and the promise of the future hopeful. Any review, however brief, of the last century, would be in- complete if it did not touch its philosophic, scientific and literary aspects. Its most remarkable features in this respect are kindred to those of its social progress. They are bold and vigorous. The critical investigation of past history, sacred and profane, has been searching and profound. The kaleidoscopic fables of the east, of Greece and Rome, have been unsparingly held up in the sunlight of modern criticism. Not a page of the Holy Books of the Hindu, the Persian or the Jew, but has been scanned by the philologer and the philosopher. Not a rock temple of India, a ruin of Ethi- opia or Central America, or a pyramid of Egypt ; nor yet an archeological remain of Europe, could escape the eager scrutiny of the antiquary. The history and social condition of ancient nations have been investigated with a critical zeal. And these studies have not been so much for ornament as for use. The indiscrim- inate laudation of old countries and institutions was the fashion two hundred years ago, but now the historian or the essayist investi- gates that he may portray the past in its true colors. Nor have the old superstitions of science fared better at the hands of the modern scientist. Antique systems have been de- manded to show their authority, and the seals of their commissions have often been challenged as spurious. Nature has been ques- tioned in a severe but loving spirit, and her responses compared in every tongue to make sure they were not Delphic. Patient in- vestigation has disclosed in nature, in matter and force, rh birth and decay, in life and progress, the unending universality of law, changeless and eternal. The reasoning faculty of man has grown with every new acquisition of knowledge, and in the pride of its power questions everything human and divine. Perhaps the most striking intellectual feature of the age is the evolution theory of organic existence and of human life itself. Bold and daring indeed is the philosophy of the nineteenth century. In its spirit it follows 580 <>l i; NATIONAL JUBILEE. the experimental methods of the Baconian system, and the future alone can pass on its true value. But though reason usually gains strength at the expense of the imagination and often to the detriment of the emotions, yet the last century has been rich in every species — some very poor — of literary productions. In poetry and romance, in art and music, it compares well with any antecedent age. In fulness and richness — perhaps not in originality — it has no peer. That the reasoning power has advanced at the expense of the imagination can hardly be doubted, and yet a Goethe and a Byron have lived in our age. The loftiest thought, the wildest imagination, the tenderest emotion, have all found expression in philosopher and poet and philan- thropist in the stormy nineteenth century. While liberty to all brings hope to the lowly, in the struggling soul of humanity glows the spark of genius, " And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray." The intellectual and moral characteristic of the age is its skepticism. Not the narrow and bigoted infidelity that marked the last century preceding, not the scoffing of the idiot unbeliever, but that earnest, devout skepticism which acknowledges no criterion of truth but human judgment, and bows to no superior but the Universe. To the timid this may portend evil. But honest skepticism is the true herald of progress. Whatever will not stand investigation is not entitled to stand at all. The weak in head or heart may fall by the way-side, but the true believe] 1 , — the believer in truth, — whose faith is winnowed from the chaff of doubt, will, like the martyrs of old, be the seed of the future Church. Want of faith in everything established is the great danger of the future, and yet its great hope. The skeptic of one age is the prophet of the next. No period has ever been more transitional than ours ; and though there may be some tares springing up in the wheat now being sown, the future will reap a rich harvest, temporal and spiritual for the sus- tenance of the coming generations of men. In all this vast general movement of human life, our country has borne its share, and our example has had its influence on tho world. ORATION GEN. DURBIN WARD. 587 While in material progress our country has, in the last century, surpassed all nations, we can also, with justice, say our people have advanced more rapidly in general intelligence than those of any other country. The high tone of the masses may well be the honest boast of Americans. In general diffusion of knowledge, in moral and social rectitude, in domestic purity and comfort, the com- mon people of our country stand in the foremost rank. If much of this is due to the immigration from Europe of the better and not the worse classes of its laboring population, and to the facility with which in the United States comfortable homes may be had, much, too, is due to our admirable system of common schools, our large circula- tion of newspapers and periodical literature, and our widely diffused and liberal religious teaching. The general intelligence is likewise cultivated by our political institutions. The public discussion on the hustings of political issues, the broad basis of suffrage, and the distribution to the very extremities of the nation of the powers of local government ; and perhaps still more than all, the educating process of trial by jury, makes the Government a popular school- master. All sexes and ages, through the workings of our system, are receiving instruction by the administration of the laws, and this is not the least of the merits of that administration. The citizen is not only made to feel that the Government and the law are sacred, because created and administered by and for the peo- ple, but the sense of individual responsibility is cultivated and the range of popular thinking enlarged. So, too, the manifold forms and instruments of our industry promote popular culture. The omnipresence of the railroad, telegraph, printing-press, steam engine, agricultural and mechanical implements, and the myriad magic fingers of machinery, teach the people practical knowledge, and excite that wonder and curiosity which lead to many an advance in physical science ; while fairs and expositions, social festivals and public concerts and amusements give aid to the hearth-stone, the school-room and the church, in that general culture which is the surest basis of public virtue, and the indispensable bulwark of free Government. Conscious, however, as we are of the general intelligence of our people, we have to admit that in the higher walks of mental cul- true we have advanced with less rapid strides. This is doubtless 588 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. to a great extent at least due to our situation. We have lived in a new country, in which a hand to hand struggle with the rude forces of nature was not only a necessity but the highest duty. Food and shelter for the family are the first objects to be sought in every stage of human progress. "When these have to be wrested by force, in an inclement climate, from a virgin soil, the sturdiest industry will find time for little else. And whatever leisure is found, naturally takes the direction of making improvements in the instruments with which to extort from rugged nature the means of subsistence. Discoveries and inventions tending to physical improvement are the natural result. And in our country we are abreast if not superior to all nations in the practical arts and inventions, and the labor-saving implements, which promote production. , We needed them most, and they came at the call of American genius. If we did not invent the steam engine, we made it subserve the humblest as well as the highest industries. It was our Fulton who first made the steamer " Walk the waters like a thing of life." And it was our pioneers who made the steam saw to migrate from forest to forest. If we did not discover the existence of electric- ity, our Franklin first taught the world to shield their habitations from its lightning blasts. . If we did not teach the lightning to speak, our Morse taught it to use the best language. If the Mother Country first harnessed the iron horse, soon afterward we had him champing the bit on this side of the water, and leaping over mountain and plain and river, through city and forest and tunnel, with flaming nostril and neck clothed with thunder, till lately, almost keeping pace with the sun, he bounded from ocean to ocean. And while the ruder wants of our pioneer life were be- ing supplied, the higher mental culture derived from the study of science, literature and art were not entirely neglected. Though too busy in the battle of the hammers to devote much time to the refined or ornamental, too busy with the practical to dwell much on the abstract, we need not be ashamed of what we have done even in the world of letters. We may regret that we have not done more, but we can j istly congratulate ourselves that we have done so much. We can hardly claim that in the highest realms of ORATION — GEN. DtRBIN WARD. 589 philosophy, science, art and literature, we have kept pace with the progress of Europe during the last hundred years. In so new a country, with institutions so equalizing in their tendency, we could not have that accumulated wealth and consequent leisure so neces- sary to barely abstract or ornamental studies. No name in the highest rank of philosophy or poetry, of science or literature, has been contributed by America to the world's intellectual galaxy. We have no Bacon or Shakespeare, Newton or Locke. Nor has our first century produced a Humboldt or Davy or Darwin or Herbert Sj)encer, nor a Goethe or Burns, Byron or Wordsworth. But still, America has not been dumb ; and even in the world of thought as well as in the world of action her voice has been heard. The fame of many of her writers gives earnest of what may be expected in every field of intellectual and moral effort when the young giant of the West has matured her dawning faculties by an- other century of culture. As might naturally be looked for our popular institutions have drawn too large a proportion of the intellect and culture of the country into the field of politics. Gradually men of ability are seeking literary, and other pursuits, giving leisure for more refined culture and deeper research. In one of the governing forces of a republic we have, therefore, equalled, if not excelled any people. Our orators everywhere abound. We could stock the Senates of the world with fine speakers. Patrick Henry, John Adams, Pinkney, West, Randolph, Corwin, Choate, Everett, Wendell Phillips, and a list of others too long to recall, without speaking of Webster, Calhoun and Clay justly entitle America to be called a nation of orators. And in the literature of law and politics too we are entitled to a high place, and the political writings of many an American will be read with deep interest centuries to come. We cannot omit to notice how rapidly the ideas of old times have been liberalized in their practical application in this country, not only in law, politics, government and industry, but in domestic and social life as well as in religion, science and literature. The stiff forms of the old law practice have passed away. Neither interest, race, or religious belief now disqualifies a witness. Im- prisonment for debt, except in cases of fraud, is abolished. Home- stead and exemption laws protect the poor. Divorces are obtain- 590 OtJR NATIONAL JUBILEE. able and married women's property rights secured. Equal dis- tribution of property is secured to all heirs alike, and primogeni- ture and entailments are abolished. Simplicity of deeds and trans- fers have been introduced, security of possession enforced by liberal statutes of limitation and many other modifications of the old law adopted tending to equality among all classes and races. So the criminal code has been toned down and prisoners have bail, and counsel and witnesses are allowed at the public charge ; and prisoners may even be witnesses for themselves. The stocks and the whipping post are no more. So everywhere schools are prac- tically free. Charities, asylums, invalid homes, cover the land so that the young and the imbecile, the erring and the insane are cared for by private munificence or at the public charge. What the old kings spent on retainers and armies, the young republic devotes to charities. And religious intolerance in our country is quite gone. Excommunication from the fold of the Church is a dead letter. Each can worship under his own vine and fig-tree with none to molest or make him afraid and God alone can call any man to account for his religious belief. The State aids no church but equally protects all. The Cathedral and the Syna- gogue, peacefully confront each other, the High Church and the Conventicle are friendly neighbors and even the Free-thinker's Hall is under protection of law. And so, too, industry is free. Unlike the old countries every man here may follow any pursuit without government license or legally prescribed apprenticeship. No property qualification is required for public place, nor even for social standing. Every one may take his place in that rank of life for which he can show himself fitted. Husbands, wives and chil- dren are bound together practically by the law of love alone. So freedom of opinion, of speech, of the press, is everywhere recog- nized and scarcely ever invaded unless it be momentarily in the excitement of political contests; or in the occasional outburst of popular wrath at some flagrant abuse of this freedom. But we must not pause longer to recount the past. The star of our country's destiny is hope, not memory. It is a morning, not an evening star. We are girding ourselves for work, not resting from labor. When we turn about us and behold our mighty em- pire of territory and our still mightier empire of future people we ORATION — GEN. DURBIN WARD. 591 are oppressed with a sense of infinitude. Bounded by the Atlantic and Pacific, washed by the ocean gulf at the south and the ocean lakes at the north ; divided into two breathing lobes of life by the Mississippi, the Mediterranean of the Republic, no physical empire yet vouchsafed to any Government has had the giant proportions of the United States. With mountains on the east, and still loftier mountains on the west, pregnant with the richest ores for use and ornament and groaning for deliverance of their treasures, they ask but enterprise and time to pour into the lap of wealth their untold millions. Surrounded in every region of our domain with boundless leagues of fertile soil, annually tickled by the yeoman's plow, and laughing back smiling harvests in his face, the swarming hives of our population will find ample scope for their children's homes, for countless prolific generations of freemen. With a com- merce whose sails shall yet whiten every sea, at home and abroad, our people shall gather the products of every clime in exchange for our own. Our teeming factories shall fill the land with the sound of hammers and the hum of spindles till the music of industry shall compose a grander symphony than ever Mozart or Beethoven con- ceived. Cities whose population shall be counted by millions ; villages nestling in coves of mountains or bays, or picturesque curves of rivers, or sleeping in shady valleys ; farm-houses of sturdy yeomen, but palaces in elegance and comfort, shall yet arise to gladden the eye. Railroads and steamers shall by every plain and river bring each region in close and constant communion with every other. The tropics and the frozen zone shall supply us, as home productions, with the sunny fruits and the warming furs, while the fibers, and cereals, and minerals — all the products of our native hands — shall make us a world within ourselves. But wealth and luxury are sources of weakness rather than strength if not accompanied by intellectual vigor and moral recti- tude. Our unbounded future wealth, and consequent temptations to luxury and dissipation can not but excite the fears of the thoughtful. Shall we live over again the history of old countries ? Shall the haughty millionaire, as in decaying Borne, enslave the free spirit of the people, corrupt their morals by his licentious habits, or purchase their suffrages by his bribes ? Shall liberty become a form and despotism a fact? If these be the results of 592 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. your wealth and grandeur, what matters it that fountains, and rostrums and statues adorn your streets ? What matters it that parks and gardens, and palaces crown your suburbs ? What matters it that expositions of your industry build splendid struc- tures, or your plastic tastes construct gorgeous theatres, museums of art, or concert halls ? What matters it that saintly formalists point the spires of cathedral and church to unresponsive Heaven ? The grand material future of America must, if we would not soon be numbered with the nations of the past, be but the minis- ter of coming ages of intellectual glory. Simplicity of life, purity of morals, and those lofty purposes which make heroes of the humblest, must characterize our jieople or their coming power and splendor will inevitably corrupt and ruin them. We have every incentive to prompt to intellectual culture and moral purity. The freedom of our institutions, the early fame of our country, the revered name of our ancestors, the future of our children — to what higher motives could appeal be made ? If we are true to these tra- ditions and hopes, how grandly looms the Republic upon the vision ! The second Centennial will find that glorious banner now waving over us covering and protecting a hundred milli- ons of high-souled, intelligent, free citizens. Not only a broad domain, wealth, and power shall make us the republican em- press of the world's destiny, but intelligence, virtue and courage — high manhood and womanhood — shall fill every household and insure the perpetuity of the American Republic. And when the next Centennial shall dawn we shall be not only untold mil- lions of happy freemen, surrounded by palatial grandeur, internal peace and social and domestic purity, but the Great Republic will be the intellectual and moral leader of the world. THE CHANGES OF A CENTUKY, AN ORATION BY S. O. GRISWOLD, ESQ., DELIVERED AT THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION IN THE CITY OF CLEVELAND, OHIO. JULY 4TH, 1876. Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens, — The phenomena of movement in the heavenly hodies could not fail to arrest the atten- tion of men in the primeval days. The natural impulse of those untaught men was worship, which lifted upward their hearts, con- veying their thoughts from material to spiritual conceptions, and inducing a culture which slowly led them from savagery to civili- zation. In the earlier times this culture extended heyond the mere alteration of days and nights and led them to the observation of the recurrence of long periods, and to the divisions of time, known as months, years, cycles, centuries. These divisions of time naturally became the point from which to date events that perpetuated them- selves in the world's memory. But in the progress of the race, as by natural metaphor, this order was reversed, and great events themselves became the marking points in the time and history. In that great city of antiquity, which subdued the cultured east and the barbaric west, and for so many centuries imposed its law and rule upon the world, time was officially reckoned from its own beginning. For ordinary purposes they adopted the received chronology, and their own greatest genius reformed the calendar, and furnished the rules for its universal use ; but all public acts were officially dated, Anno Urbis Oonditce — from the year of the founding of the city — and in this designation there was a continued appeal to the pride and patriotism, alike of rulers and people. When the nations of Western Europe emerged from the barbar- ism into which they relapsed after the withdrawal of the central power of the empire, they had nothing in their own national expe- rience upon which to found a chronological succession. Thechiefs 594 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. of that hierarchy which succeeded the imperial with their spiritual sway, adopted for general use the Julian tables ; and these Western nations, more submissive to priestly than political supremacy, readily accepted their instruction, and took with them, as their initial point in reckoning, that which they were taught to believe was the year of the Divine Advent to earth in their behalf. Offspring of these "Western nations, the people of America con tinued the use of the common calendar, but the founders of the new form of Government, when they ordained the same in this Western Hemisphere, took a new departure in time. With more than prophetic prescience, they believed that here would arise and grow an Empire of the People, mightier and more beneficent than that of Rome. Animated by that great example, and influenced by the same motives, they intended all acts of their Government, so long as it endured, should bear proper relation in time and history to that great event, — the Birth of the Nation, and so they practiced ; and whenever an act has been or is done in the name of the Gov- ernment it is always recited as " Done in the year of the Independence of the United States of America." And we, fellow-citizens, are here assembled to celebrate the Hundredth Anniversary of that event. It is in the highest degree appropriate that this celebration should be conducted by the per- formance of religious ceremonies, by music, by civil and military display, and by all the modes in which intelligent men may testify their reverence, their gratitude, and their joy. It has also been recommended by Congress and the President of the United States that on the occasion of this celebration, in each town and city, there should be prepared an address, embodying the local history of the place, the same to be deposited in the archives of the Nation. In this city of ours there exists a Society, the object and jDurpose of which is to collect and preserve all the material relating to the history of the place from the earliest period to the present date, and the distinguished President of that association has prepared with great care and labor that history, and Ills work is set forth in an elaborate volume, which is already deposited in the National library. It was therefore requested of me by your Committee of Arrange- ments that this recommended duty he on my part omitted, and in ORATION — S. O. OUISWOLD, ESQ. 595 their behalf to submit to you a few words such as T should deem fit and appropriate to the time and occasion. I doubt not, the thought uppermost in the minds of all, is the change during the Century. On the 4th day of July, 177G, Cleve- land was not ; and now behold the fair city with all its pride and beauty in which we are assembled — located on a site which would have delighted even a Greek Eponymist — itself a living exhibition of the progress, the development, and the results of the century. If one were possessed of the painter's skill or engraver's art, there might be presented a scene which would convey to your minds by a single glance all the grand features of that contrast which a volume of words would fail to express. Here would be shown the broad lake, its waters unvexed by keel or prow, washing a tenant- less shore, with a river debouching from a vast forest into it, whose sluggish waters were slowly forcing their way through the bar at the mouth of the channel. In the forest glade, might be seen, a few savage men maintaining a precarious conflict for life with equally savage beasts. There, might be seen, the ocean line, its border fringed with the habitations of men, and their overhanging sun and sky would be darkened by smoke of the battle of contend- ing armies. In the center of that habited region, there would be seen a fair city, the abode of peaceful men ; in the city's midst, a council chamber, in which was gathered a company of Elders, whose form and appearance would indicate that Plutarch's men had returned to earth again. The chief of that council would be holding in his hand an unrolled scroll upon which all eves were intent, and on that scroll, in letters all of living gold, flashing with a brighter than electric light, those never to be forgotten words, " All men are created equal." There, leading out from the in- habited land, might be seen a procession, the leader of which was a surveyor, with his compass and chains ; following him a hardy emigrant, axe in hand, with his slow team of oxen bearing his family and scanty household goods ; then would appear an estab- lished highway with moving teams of better appointed travelers; then, the artificial inland river with its slow-moving burdened craft; then, the rushing locomotive, followed by a great company which no man might number. Here, might be seen, the woodman making a clearing in the forest, and beyond, the cabin, the school- 596 OUll NATIONAL JUBILEE. house, the church, fair fields, plains, cities, and stretching out an illumined vista horizoned by the millennial gates, the groupings of which scene none but a God might frame, and only the genius of Homer fitly describe. I find it most difficult, from the many striking features which this great contrast of the century presents, to select a topic for re- mark in the brief time allowed me in the performance of the ceremonies of the day, but I have chosen, and I purpose for a few moments calling your attention to the Continental Congress, as connected with the subject of Government by the Representative Assembly. / " In the early days, when men were limited in numbers and association to the family, the village, or tribe, the problems of government were few and simple ; but when numbers increase, ideas enlarge, the village becomes a city, and the tribe a nation, these problems become all-absorbing questions. How to combine individual liberty with central authority ; to protect the simple and guileless from the artful and cunning ; to insure peace, order, and security to life and property, and yet not fall into the meshes of tyranny ; on the one hand to be free from the evils of anarchy, and on the other from the evils of despotism — are questions" which have occupied the best thoughts of the best men in all civilized States. I need not dwell upon the disturbing forces against which no theory can provide, or upon the thousand practical attempts at the solution of these problems. I hesitate not to say, and I believe it to be the unbiased judgment of the " candid world," that of all the modes of government which the wit of wisdom of man has yet contrived, the best and most successful is the Representative As- sembly. I do not deny the excellency of the Ancient City. I acknowl- edge the glory of the Periklean State, but the strain was too great for human nature to endure, where every citizen is continually called upon to exercise the functions of a legislator, a judge, and a soldier. For a short period the system shone with great splendor and its light still illumines mankind, but it was adapted only to limited territorial possession, and required its citizens to be supported by the labor of a servile clas^. I acknowledge the peace and security of the Empire. Under ORATION — S. O. GKISAVOLD, ESQ. 597 its benign and peaceful sway, local and provincial enmities were subdued, free intercourse established throughout the world, and the sure foundations laid for the steady development of all the arts and ideas which lead to a more perfect civilization. But the. Empire at its best estate operates as a thrall on human energy and thought, and is only successful when its chief is a Hadrian ; but if the emperor be a Caligula, it would seem as if the world had been given over to the power of the Priuce of Darkness. The Representative Assembly appears to be the just mean. Under it the whole electoral body are called upon to exercise some political duties. To the great majority, these duties are not absorbing, and leave them the full opportunity for their own best development in mind, body, and estate. Those, who are called upon to exercise the functions of rulers, are themselves members of the electoral body, and, in theory, are selected because of some special qualifications of fitness for their respective stations. They can have no interest, as a class, antagonistic to the general electoral body, and hold their station by the choice of their fellow-electors. The history of the origin of this mode of government is lost, in the lost early history of our race. Its rise and progress can only be traced in the survivals of ancient customs. Its germ undoubt- edly existed in those ancient councils of the German forest, when the yea was pronounced by the clashing of buckler, and the nay by equally significant dissent. It is the great contribution of the Teutonic race to the common civilization of the world. It was an idea, when once conceived of, too valuable to be lost. It possessed of itself a vital force, which would not permit it to be destroyed. It survived among the people during the period of the Roman domination, nor was it buried, in the barbarism which ensued. It reappeared in the Gemot and Witan and found its first, fullest development in the Parliament of England, whose people were the growth of the graftings of the best stocks of the race. Of all the famous assemblies which have ever convened, none can favorably compare with the Continental Congress save the Long Parliament, and the French National Assembly. The Continental Congress was more successful and fortunate than either of these. The Long Parliament degenerated into a mob, and was dispersed 598 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. with contemptuous words by the servant itself had chosen to exe- cute its command, and he, after vainly attempting to establish for t a successor, was compelled to uphold the tottering state by his own vigorous will. The French National Assembly shrank into a murderous club, from whose bloody hands the nation was only saved by submitting itself to the rule of a dictator : and for nearly a hundred years that brilliant nation has passed through the great- est alterations, and only in our day, under the bitter mortification of a foreign occupation finally established the Representative As- sembly. The Continental Congress, though more favored by fortune, was no product of chance, or of sudden inspiration. It was the result of centuries of experience. It was the natural outgrowth of the race, with special advantages of time and place. In the first cen- tury following the discovery of America, the Spanish nation was the foremost power of the world, and the energies of that people had been directed to Central America, their chief object the gain of wealth ; to aid the old and not to establish a new empire. Dur- ing the first half of that century the English nation had been engaged in internal conflict. Its whole people had been aroused by the great religious awakening of the Reformation, but these internal conflicts had for a time greatly weakened the state. During the long sway of Elizabeth the nation had recuperated, and the capacity of the race and its general development were shown by the appearance in a single generation of such men as Raleigh, Bacon, and Shakespeare. When the Armada was destroyed England stepped to the front rank ; and all those eager eyes which behold the future turned their gaze to this Western Hemisphere. The first emigrants were of course mere adventurers for gain, or religious enthusiasts, who combined in themselves some of the best as well as worst elements of human nature, but they were not the stuff out of which nations are formed. The troublous times which preceded the Great Rebellion induced hither an immense emigration. I lately noted, in a publication containing the official register of the port of London, that in the month of April and May of the year 1 635 there sailed from that port alone bound for New England and Virginia, twenty-two ships ORATION S. O. GUIS WOLD, ESQ. HM loaded with passengers. Tn one of these the names of two hundred and eleven passengers are given in full, and those names have been perpetuated, and some of them may be read to-day on the signs in your business streets. In the ten years, from 1630 to 1640, the great bulk of the emigration of the first half of the century took place. I also noted in the same register, that these persons who embarked had obtained from the proper parish officer a certificate, either that they had. paid or were not subject to the subsidy (ship money) tax. They were men of the substantial middle class of the people upon whom this burden fell grievously. They had not the same stake in the soil as the great leaders of the opposition to the Government, and when they emigrated hither, they came with the intent of building up in Massachusetts, Con- necticut, and Virginia a new England, free from the existing thral- doms of their native land. They had the average education of the middle class. The influence of the Reformation had awakened and quickened their moral natures, and they had had experience in civil rights as jurymen and members of municipal and village coun- cils. If not rich in worldly goods, they had two priceless posses- sions ; a devout regard for the moral rule, and a knowledge of the common law. They came generally by communities, the large majority accustomed to agricultural pursuits, hut they endeavored always to unite and join with them in their enterprise, the mason and the carpenter, the tanner and the shoemaker, and all the tradesmen needful to form a complete industrial society. There came also with them religious teachers who had generally received the culture of the Universities, and lawyers who had been trained at the Temple. They were, in the main, a devout, industrious, thriving people, and above all a race of surpassing valor. They were brethren and next of kin of the famous Ironsides of Crom- well ; soldiers, who, in fair and open fight on their common native soil, overcame cavalier, noble, and prince ; who swept as with the whirlwind the hardy Scot at Dunbar, ami trampled as ou the chaff of the threshing floor the Irishry of Minister ; and who, when their service ended, quietly disbanded and fused with the mass of the people, and in the succeeding years when in community any one was distinguished above his fellows " for diligence in business, sobriety, and regularity in the pursuit of peace," it was to be noted 600 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. of him that he had been a soldier in the regiments of Cromwell Owing to the advantages of soil and climate their natural increase was great and there was added to them a continued accession by emigration. In the forms of government provided by tlie charters of the different colonies, the principles of representative government were always included ; indeed, in the framing of those charters, and in providing modes of constituting the Representative Assembly, the wisest and purest scholars and statesmen of England were often consulted, and some of these charters were so excellent as to have remained without change long after tlie Revolution. It was not till after the subjugation of the Canadas, to which the soldiers of the colonies had greatly contributed, that difficul- ties began to arise. Hitherto they had either been left to them- selves, or if interfered with, it had been done with good will, and a purpose to aid and foster their growth. The oppressive acts of Parliament, of which the colonist complained, were rather the re- sult of prejudice and ignorance than of any real design to injure. The King of England was not a man of cruelty, or possessed of any purpose to be unfaithful to any of the principles of the British Constitution, which, by his coronation oath, he had sworn to up- hold. It is to be noted that most of the charges set forth in that terrible arraignment which has just been read in your hearing, were acts done after the conflict had ripened into war. But the King was grossly ignorant, and was obstinate to a degree almost amounting to insanity — in fact, he subsequently became insane. The amusing stories related by our citizens who travel abroad, of the present extreme ignorance in regard to this country on the part of apparently intelligent people, are but a faint shadow of the general ignorance which then prevailed. A few far-seeing statesmen realized the actual condition of affairs, and most nobly, but in vain, sought to stay the hand of the Government, which was daily proceeding from bad to worse. In 1774, matters had proceeded so far that a Congress, deputed in part by the Colonial Assemblies, and in part by political conven- tions, met at Philadelphia to consult for the common good. They passed a preamble and resolutions, asserting their rights under the Bjjtish Constitution, and recited the numerous a^s gi Parliament ORATION — S. O. GRISWOLD, ESQ. 601 which they deemed to be in derogation of their rights under the common law. They recommended to the people modes of peace- ful resistance, and adopted a memorial to the British Government. The idea of a separation had not yet pervaded the minds of the people, and they looked up to England as to a venerated mother. In her soil were entombed the bones of their fathers and kindred, and they felt themselves to be partakers in her splendid fame. They had with alacrity sprung to arms at her call to battle against the ancient enemies of the nation. They eagerly marched under her standard to drive the French from the Canadas, and were equally ready to join in expelling the Spaniard from the Antilles and Central America. They claimed none of the ordinary ex- emptions from military duty. The Major-General of the forces of one of the colonies, an ancestor of one of your most eminent divines, was aged sixty-seven. In the journal left by him, in which he kept a record of the long and successful campaign against Louisburg, the most valuable part is that which evinces the un- abated vigor of his body and mind and his profound regard for the Colonial Assembly, from which he had received his commission. Another distinguished officer, being dissuaded from accepting a command offered by the same Assembly in the expedition against the Spaniards, on account of his family and the dangers of a trop- ical climate as well as the dangers of war, replied : " I can leave my family with Divine Providence, and as to my own life, it is not left with man to determine the time or place of his death. I think it best not to be anxious about it. The great thing is to live and die in our duty. I think the war is just. My call is clear. Somebody must venture, and why not I as well as an- other ? " The voice of the General Assembly was to him as the call of God to the Prophet of old, and in the same spirit of obe- dience he answered, " Here am I." Death relieved him of his command, and his grave was soon hidden by the rank growth of that tropic soil, but his faith was well founded, his family have continued, and one of his direct descendants is a citizen of your city, who by his great accpiirements and contributions to geologic science, has made your city distinguished as a home of learning. At the beginning of the latter half of the century, the Holland- ers and Swedes, who were the predominating element of the Mid- 6U2 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. die States, had become indistinguishable from the common mass of the citizens. The former were a tough and hardy race, which had been trained to a high development under the leadership of the true, princely house of Orange ; the fathers of the latter had fol- lowed the victorious banner of Gustavus Adolphus, to uphold the cause of religious liberty against the combined forces of the Papacy and the Empire, and both were of the original stocks ol the Anglo-Saxon combination. The small element of the Celtic and Huguenot class, by their religions training was fitted to as- similate with the rest of the people. Undoubtedly, the comparatively lean soil and more severe climate of Massachusetts had forced her citizens to fisheries, com- merce, and other active pursuits, and given to them a more ad- venturous spirit, which, with their numbers and wealth, naturally gave them the leadership ; but on the whole, the inhabitants were a homogeneous people. For more than a century their civic edu- cation had been promoted by the rule of the Colonial Assemblies. In his great speech in Parliament in favor of conciliation of the Colonies, that famous orator and statesman, who, it has been said, possessed in the highest degree the faculty of perceiving the dis- tant and the past, as if it were actually present, mentions the fact of the number of the copies of Blackstone's Commentaries ex- ported hither, and statistics show that more volumes were here annually sold than in the rest of the kingdom. Their experience in the Indian and French wars had accustomed them to the use of arms, and trained them in the art of war. Of all these things, the blind Tory majority which ruled Parliament and supported the King were profoundly ignorant. The memorial of the Congress of 1774 was treated with contempt, and regarded as a sign of weakness. In all the pages of history, there is no record of greater folly than this, by which the affections of such a loyal body of citizens were alienated. The issues rapidly led to open conflict in which blood was shed. At once the several States took immediate steps for the arma- ment of the people. The farmer left his plow ; the artisan his toil ; the merchant his pursuit of gain ; the doctor his patients ; the lawyer his clients, and all went forth incited and supported by the prayers of priest and woman. ORATION — S. O. GRISWOLD, ESQ. 603 On the 10th of May, 1775, the Continental Congress assembled, deputed by the different States to assume the general control. They came together without precedent, or any fixed rules of au- thority. They had no legally established constituency, but one in fact existed, which they did not fail to recognize, and for which they boldly assumed to act. So during the centuries, in the womb of the continent had been gendered a nation which knew not itself, whose birth, to the as- tonishment of the world, was accomplished by the bloody pangs of war, and the Continental Congress, as by divine commission, he- stowed upon it baptism and a name. Time would fail me to recount the history of that Congress. ; ' It raised armies, appointed generals, levied taxes, negotiated foreign loans and treaties," carried the war to a successful termina- tion, and finally extorted from unwilling England a full recogni- tion of the perfect legitimacy of this new member of the great family of nations. I cannot stop to speak of the difficulties with which it had to contend, of the noble manner of its own dissolu- tion, or its unselfish action in aiding to submit to the people for adoption the New Constitution which was to provide in its stead a perpetual successor with lixed and defined powers, the lack of which had been the great source of its own weakness. I cannot dwell upon the individual character of its members, or even of that member whom it appointed to be general of its armies ; that Man of men, who, when the victory was won, refusing all compensa- tion for his long service, modestly returned to it the sword of com- mand, and quietly sought the home he so dearly loved, and to en- gage in those avocations and pursuits of peace which he enjoyed with so much zest. I cannot, however, forbear to mention one of its acts of wise statesmanship. Appreciating the importance of the great North- west, of which little had then been explored beyond the present State of Ohio, they settled and adjusted the conflicting claims of the different States to the title of the land, and adopted for the Government of the territory the Ordinance of 17*7 ; and to en- able the incoming inhabitants to enjoy the "blessings of liberty," which the new Constitution was ordained to secure, they ap- pointed their own distinguished President to be its Governor — to 604 OUK NATIONAL JUBILEE. protect them by his valor and to teach them by his civil experi- ence. I should, however, do injustice to my theme if I did not make brief comment upon those two great truths they so boldly asserted and so resolutely maintained — the civil equality of man, and that the consent of the governed gives sanction to Government — those truths upon which Government by the Representative Assembly is based. After the "lapse of a century we can hardly realize the importance of the declaration of these political principles. It is still more difficult to appreciate the force and potency of the belief, in the world at large, of precisely the contrary doctrine. The origin and persistence of this contrary belief, popularly called " the Divine right of Kings," is one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of the human intellect. In the early days, men, unable to give an account of their own genesis, and perceiving the manifest distinctions in the gifts of mind and body, readily yield to the claim of divine origin by the superior man. It is an assumption so flattering to natural pride and vanity that the claimants came to believe their own fiction. It is one of the survivals of Aryan barbarism, and the belief has per- vaded all branches of the race. The Homeric kingly heroes all are given a genealogy ascending to Olympus. In historic times, the royal houses of Sparta and Macedon called themselves Hera- clidaB and traced through their founder, their origin directly to the All-seeing Zeus. The other leading families of Greece claimed a like descent from him or some other Olympic Divinity. Even the great Julius, so cultivated and so enlightened, cherished the weak fancy that his ancestral mother was the Divine Beauty, Aphrodite. The same belief was current in the old Teutonic tribes. Those long-haired warriors, with all their natural independence, conceded the right to the family of the Divine Amali to furnish a Chief, or King for their selection. The survival of the barbaric days had been fostered by the priestly class which, under a like claim of divine authority, always sought to rule, or to ally itself with the ruling power. A hundred years ago there pervaded nearly the whole civilized world a belief that something of sacredness was attached to the kingly office. Down into the present century the idea, that there was some occult and mysterious power connected ORATION — S. O. GMSWOLl), fcs(j. 605 with the succession to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, still affected the imagination of men. This general belief was most rudely assailed when the Lon^ Parliament, after arraignment and trial, brought the head of the faithless Charles to the block. As a legal entity it was effectually eradicated from the British Constitution, when the Convention of 1688 deposed the foolish sou of the faithless father and called to the throne a prince, who solemnly pledged himself torecognize the representative assemblies of the nation as the supreme law-making power. Yet thousands of pious hearts were greatly outraged at this violent deposition of one whom they believed held his office by divine right, and had received a visible token thereof, when the sacred oil was poured upon his head by a high priest, who, they also believed, held his office in the right of an unbroken succession I'om the Sou of God ; and they yielded to the new dynasty a mournful allegiance, quieting their tender consciences with the fond belief that in the new dynasty there could still be found a trace of blood of the royal race of the ancient JEthelings. The Continental Congress struck at the very root of this belief and laid down as an axiom — as a fundamental principle not to be questioued — that all men are created equal. Henceforth in the State no man was to be regarded as having an inherent right to rule. High and low, rich and poor, gifted and simple, all were to be equal before the law. In the domain of conscience men might still assert divine commission to teach, and in default of production of the original parchment of authority, persuade their followers by such secondary evidence as they could furnish, but such evidence was never to have competency in the State. Men might still follow in private belief those who claim such divine authority, but in the State, priest and believer, were all to stand as equal children of the Common Father. These truths of the Declaration of Independence, of course, are to be taken with the necessary limitations applicable to all political doctrine. They were intended to apply only to men who, by culture, had attained to the height of understanding the obligation of the moral law. Nor, because they failed to include in their State the negro and the Indian, dor-, it follow that the one could be rightly held as a slave, or the other exterminated as a savage 600 OUtt NATIONAL .JUBILLK. beast. They laid down the truth for intelligent manhood, and as such to be applicable to all men, for all time. With this principle as the basis, they anticipated the time when the untaught African by training and education, and the savage Indian by the subjection of his natural fierceness, might both attain the capacity to enjoy the benefits of the Government thus established. Of all the progress and achievements of the century, nothing is more notable than the steady growth of these truths, and the adoption, as a necessary consequent, of the mode of government by the Representative Assembly. It has been established in all the nations of Western Europe, in United Italy, in resurrected Greece, and even among the most progressive peoples of the Turanian race. It matters not whether the Executive be chosen by universal suffrage, or selected from a particular family, which is made the depository of the executive office, whether the executive officer be called President, Marshal, Prince, King, or Emperor, in all these Nations, the exercise of the executive functions is performed in obedience to the Representative Assembly as the law-making power. How much of all this is due to the culture and progress of the people, or how much of their culture and progress is due to this form of government, are questions for the student of history, upon which I cannot dwell. It may be claimed our great success is more due to the Federal than to the Representative system, but the idea of a Federal Union was no novel device. It had been long known and used equally by pure democracies, and by nations under monarchical rule. It was first applied in the later period of the Greek City, and was evolved in that struggle when the freedom of Greece was being crushed between the upper and nether millstones of Macedon and Rome. It was adopted here because of the accident of different charters of the different Colonial States. This and the sparseness of the population have combined to extend the Federal bond, and this Federal system is perhaps the only mode in which the prin- ciple of representative government could be applied to so vast a country. The occasion will not permit me to discuss the methods of select- ing the members of the representative body, or the needed reforms in existing methods ; and upon fhc <|ii<'s!i<>ii whether the system ORATION — S. O. GRISWOLD, ESQ. (ill? can be adapted equally to mere municipal government, and to an universal state, I can only make a passing remark. The city of modern civilization is only a limb, not the soul of the State. Tn it the greatest social distinctions arise. It is also the refuge of the criminal class, and the home of those who follow occupations for which there is no opportunity in rural life. Hitherto the applica- tion of this mode to mere municipal rule has not been a pronounced success. In its exercise there has occurred misrule, extravagance, oppressive taxation, betrayal of trusts, and disgraceful corruption. The superficial observer, comparing our greatest city most unfavor- able with London or Paris, does not hesitate to declare this mode of government, for municipal rule, a failure. It should be remem- bered that the breaking up of a new soil is always productive of malarial diseases. I cannot stop to discuss the hopes or conditions of reform, but merely suggest that even in that great -and illy governed city of the United States the opportunity for a free education is furnished to every child. The possibilities of this system for an universal empire I leave to political theorists. For myself I do not believe it can ever be- come a practical question. Distinct nationality is one of the con- ditions of human existence, and impracticable difficulties arise in the attempt to unite what nature itself divides. The opposing in- terests will be too great to permit one body to make equal general laws. The chain will break by its own weight. The cosmopoli- tan is not the ideal man. I appreciate the fine culture which eradicates all local manners and prejudices, but its tendency is to the elimination of the higher virtues. The earthly millenium is an empty dream, for always in human nature there is an inherent weakness, and in the blossoming of the highest manly virtues there is ever present a scent of provincial flavor. The moral of my theme — the conditions of the permanency of this mode of government — must be obvious to all. In our genera- tion we have witnessed somewhat of a lowering in the character of the Representative Assembly, both in the States and Nation, and the air is rife with the charges of their corruption. These, how- ever, are but mere passing clouds. As are the people, so will be the character of their representative bodies. Wealso in our genera- tion, with mingled tears of pride, joy, and sorrow, have witnessed 60$ our national jubilee. that the ancient valor of the people is undiminished ; and may we not hope in this Centennial year for a renewal of the ancient civic virtues. The conditions of these, and of their continuance are moral and intellectual culture. It should ever he borne in mind that the race is renewed in weakness ; each infant contains in him- self all the fierce instincts of the original savage, and he can only be brought to perfect manhood by training and education. To ieep him in his proper line, those centrifugal tendencies must be checked and balanced by these opposing forces. Let the State, by invincible and never-changing will, educate the intellect of youth, and, trusting to the higher social instincts for the moral culture, we may fondly hope that the success of the century will continue through the ages. PEOGRESS OF THE HUMAN EAOE. AN ORATION BY HON. GEORGE L. CONVERSE. DELIVERED AT THE CAPITOL, COLUMBUS, OHIO, JULY 4TH, 1876. This vast multitude of people here assembled is proof of the magnitude and importance of the occasion which has brought us together. The happiness beaming from so many thousand up- turned faces is proof that we have met in commemoration of no ordinary event, and the gratitude and joy and reverence in each countenance show that event to have been one with which the happiness and welfare of the human family is in some way con- nected, and that the event must have been controlled and directed in the councils of heaven itself. No other subject could excite so much feeling in our bosoms, or move such a multitude by one common impulse. One hundred years ago to-day, and about this hour, the repre- sentatives of the thirteen American colonies, assembled at Inde- pendence Hall, in the city of Philadelphia, were in solemn and earnest deliberation, upon the subject of American independence and the natural rights of man. At about 2 o'clock in the after- noon of that memorable day those grand old representative men of the last century, reached a conclusion, and adopted by a unani- mous vote the Declaration of Independence which has just been read in your hearing. Then the old bell in the hall tower swung back and forth an hundred times, and with its hundred tongues proclaimed liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof. A nation was born on that day ; a new member added to the family of nations, with a new civilization founded upon natural rights. " "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights ; that 610 OUlt NATIONAL JUBILEJE. amongst these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." This is the American idea — these the cardinal principles upon which the new civilization and the new government were based. A government of the people, by the people, founded upon natural justice. Some religionists, both of the United States and Europe, have been disposed to grumble at the work of that day, and have charged lack of sincerity upon the venerable men who so fearlessly declared American independence and the natural right of all men to life,, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, because slavery then existed and was protected by law in all the thirteen colonies ; and because it continued to exist for years, and in some of them for almost a century thereafter. They claim that the government established by our fathers under the Constitution was a covenant with the evil one, rather than sanctioned by heaven ; because it recognized and protected human slavery in violation of the laws of nature and the principles of the declaration. Such should remember that time is one of the elements entering into nearly all the operations of nature. Thus, a wound upon the human body, or upon any living thing, either animal or vegetable, cannot be healed in a moment. Nature with the added element of time effects a cure. It requires a quarter of a century to rear and develop and educate one man. Countless ages of time are expended in the great laboratory of nature beneath the sea in lay- ing the foundations and building the superstructure of a continent and raising it by the hand of our father to the surface — in covering it with verdure and peopling it with animal life. Who has for- gotten the lesson of patience and faith taught by our blessed Lord and Master, in the parable of the tares : " Let both grow together until the harvest. ' ORATION HON. GEO. L.CONVERSE. Gil Instead of being influenced by the censure^ and fault-finding of theorists and enthusiasts, the wisdom of our fathers should com- mand our highest respect. Their patience, the faith they exhibited in their principles, that in due time they would do their perfect work in the government, as they have done, are still doing, and will continue to do so in the future, should receive our universal and unqualified admiration. When at this distance of time we look back through the vista of an hundred revolving years, and see the whole train of events which followed the Declaration of Independence as effects follow a cause, and when we observe tne glorious results, as the years, like rain drops, fall into the vast ocean of the past, it is easy in our enthu- siasm, to see the path of duty and of honor which lay before our ancestors ; but when we consider that public opinion was divided, that the wealthy and aristocratic classes were in general opposed to the step — that the lives of the fifty-six signers, and all others who took part, or assisted in carrying forward the measures, were at stake, and that failure would result in increased distress of the people of the colonies, from the oppressions of the British King ; when we see them appeal to the God of battles for the rectitude of their intentions, and the justice of their cause — with only two or three millions of people — against the most powerful nation then on the face of the earth, both their faith and conduct became sub- lime. We cannot realize the conflicting emotions that must have agitated their manly breasts, as they deliberated upon the momen- tous questions, nor the alternating hopes and fears they must have felt during that baptism of blood, through the seven years' war that followed. They possessed not only physical courage, which gave them vic- tory in battle, but moral coinage which sustained them in adversity and defeat. The blessings of a hundred years rest upon their memory! The whole nation doth rise up this day and call them blessed. Their example gives courage and hope to the down- trodden and the oppressed, and to lovers of liberty everywhere- Self-sacrificing, courageous, hopeful, noble men ! Could their days have been lengthened out to witness this Centennial year, or could they be permitted to leave their heavenly abode and revisit this day, the scenes of their earthly struggles and final triumph, or 612 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. could the windows of»heaven be opened and their disembodied spirits be permitted to see (as perhaps they may) the results of their toil and labor and self-sacrifice, view the ten thousand gather- ings of the people throughout the land — hear the glad shouts of fifty millions of people as they hail this Centennial day — feel the breath and sweet incense of grateful prayer as it rises from fifty millions of thankful hearts to the living God with benedictions upon their memory, what sublime joy must pervade their immor- tal souls ! They would see that instead of being British provinces, subject to the laws and dominations of the British crown, we have for almost a hundred years enjoyed all the blessings of liberty and a republican form of government. That we have grown from two or three millions of people to nearly fifty millions ; from thirteen weak and sparsely settled Colonies to thirty-seven great, prosperous and powerful States, and to-day the State of Colorado will come into the Union, making thirty-eight, with two or three more asking and ready for admission ; that several of the leading States now have each a larger population, more wealth and are more powerful in every respect than the whole thirteen Colonies at the time the immortal fifty-six signed that instrument. The wilderness extending almost from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean has disappeared and in its stead are human habitations — cities, towns, villages, churches, school-houses and farms, with their broad fields to-day, waving in God's sunlight, with their rich harvests of golden grain. The merciless savages, who in the bloody struggle that followed the Declaration of Independence, were employed by our British relations to scalp old men, helpless women and innocent children at the price of a pound each, have so far disappeared that their numbers no longer excite apprehensions of trouble or danger. Religious liberty is everywhere protected by law — whether in the Capitol, the prison, the poor-house, the church or the domicil — and yet there is entire separation between Church and State, enforced by Constitutional provision. Here is a school system unsurpassed, and a general intelligence among the people nowhere equalled on the face of the earth. ORATION — HON. GEO. L. CONVERSE. 613 Instead of thirteen Colonies afflicted with African slavery for which they were in no wise responsible, they would observe four millions of colored men to-day rejoicing in a new found freedom, and with us, heart and soul, revering the memories of the gallant dead, and celebrating this glorious day, with processions and banners and shouts and songs. Who will say now, that the seed sown one hundred years ago did not in due and proper time germinate and bring forth in God's providence its natural fruit? Is not the present condition of affairs the logical sequence of Independence Day ? They would find here the graces of the Christian religion cultivated and practiced, and a purity in both public and private life nowhere else to be found on the face of the earth, politicians to the contrary notwithstanding. Woman here is more favored, occupies a higher place in creation, and breathes a purer moral atmosphere than in any other land. They would find this continent free from European domination and influence, and each State, sovereignty and Government on it, making greater, or less progress in our peculiar civilization, under the influence and example of the United States. The fact is, free government is indigenous in American soil ; it flourishes here, and under intelligent cultivation yields a bountiful harvest of happiness. Monarchy, on our soil, is of sickly growth and cannot be successfully cultivated. Louis Napoleon's experiment with Maximilian proves this, and should the Spanish Prince make ' a like attempt he will share the same fate with the Austrian. Instead of slow sailing vessels, they would find on river, lake and ocean the swift and powerful steamer ; instead of common wagon transports, long trains of cars loaded with passengers and freight, flying with the speed of the wind from one side of the continent to the other ; instead of the post-rider, the lightning has been harnessed and conveys intelligence beneath the ocean and to the most distant parts of the globe with the swiftness of thought. The mind is lost in wonder and amaze- ment in contemplating the progress of the human race in a single century under free government. 614 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. And, finally, as they turn their immortal eyes toward the City of Brotherly Love — the birth-place of American freedom — on this her natal day, what sublime emotions must agitate the breast of these heroes and patriots, as they witness all the nations of the earth assembled in that place dedicated to freedom under the very shadow of Independence Mall, in friendly emulation, celebrating the triumphs of peace, each nation under its own flag, and all under the ample and protecting folds of the stars and stripes. Truly peace hath her victories and her triumphs as well as war. But what warrior, amongst the most successful the world has ever produced, has been able to prolong his continuous triumph beyond a single week ? But peace here hath her daily triumphal procession of vast multitudes, each day differing from that which preceded it, marching through her crystal palace for the period of half a year. Her triumphs are attended with an expense of untold millions of dollars, and conducted with a magnificence and splendor the world has never seen before, but, under the inspiration of freedom and popular government, oft shall see again. There are no royal prisoners chained to triumphal car, to grace the occasion ; there are no treasures and spoil stained with human blood to give it magnificence and splendor, but here is the wealth of the mine, the farm, the workshop, the studio, and the school in orderly arrangement and endless profusion, from all parts of the habitable globe. The city is rightly named. This is now the "city of the soul." Gentle peace, under the banner of freedom, here " Hath thus amassed All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask ; away with words. Draw near. Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, for here There' is such matter for all feeling." Can there be any doubt that the nations are profiting by our example ? If the world's progress during the last century is any criterion, what will he the condition of affairs at the end of the next? In another century there will be from sixty to a hundred sovereign States. Our Southern border will be ORATION HON. GEO. L. CONVERSE. 615 the isthmus ; our Northern, the frozen seas ; and East and West our flag will float far enough to cover with its protecting shadow the adjacent islands. In other centuries, perhaps, this whole continent will he locked in the embrace of one common brotherhood of States. Under the representative principle and home rule, the Union is capable of great expansion, and could with time and education be made to embrace the continent. American citizenship shall everywhere be a panoply and a shield to its possessor. Our population may become as countless as the sands on the sea shore, but science shall unlock to them the secret storehouse of wealth. The earth under their manipulation shall yield her products more abundantly and with greater regularity. Science shall discover to them the door that leads to the rich deposits of silver, gold and precious stones. By its aid, her commerce may float in the air above the mountain top and the cloud, or be guided on glistening rails beneath the ocean. The arcana of nature will be explored — the air, the water — the very elements shall give up their secret treasures of power and of motion, at the command of science, to the sous of freedom. In the march of coming generations, the thundering tread of American freemen, whether in war or in peace, shall echo from the distant ocean shore on either side, and be heard and heeded alike by Caucasian and Mongolian. In the clash of ideas and political principles sure to come in the distant future, America will represent one type of civilization, with free and popular government, while Russia, having swallowed the lesser kingdoms around or combining with them, shall repre- sent the other, with centralization and despotism. When the tvfo systems meet, as meet they will, it will be in the shock of dreadful war, and like the meeting of two clouds surcharged with the elements of storm, the land will be deluged in blood. The sons of freedom shall prevail, and out of the con- flict shall arise the sweet and lasting peace that shall characterize the millennium. This picture is not altogether imaginary. The ancient prophets have prophesied concerning this land and this government of ours, and have recorded their prophecy in the sacred scriptures. This 610 OUK NATIONAL JUJilLEE. is the restored Israel spoken of by the prophets. This is the stone cut out of the mountain without hands. This is the male child born of the woman that fled into the wilderness. These are the waiting isles — in part peopled from the North and the the West, and from the land of Sinnim, foretold by the prophet Isaiah. This is the land between two seas East and West — the land that hath always been waste — the land whose people were gathered out of the nations of the earth — the land where the stranger hath an inheritance — the land of unwalled towns and villages — the land of broad rivers and streams which Ezekiel saw. It was of this free people and this glorious republic that Jeremiah prophesied when he speaks of a people who gather themselves together and appoint unto themselves one head — a people whose nobles shall be of themselves, and whose governors shall proceed from the midst of them. Who does not love this glorious republic better because it is mentioned in the Scriptures ? Thus it is, religion and patriotism combine, with exultation, gratitude and hope to swell the flood oi emotions that sweep over our souls this day. CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. AN ADDRESS BY HON. HARVEY RICE, PRESIDENT OF THE DAY. DELIVERED AT CLEVELAND, OHIO, JULY 4TH, 1876. Friends and Fellow-Citizens — We have met to commem- orate the centennial of our national existence. One hundred years ago an infant republic was born on this continent whose first ut- terances announced to the world the Declaration of her Indepen- dence. Marvelous as it may seem, she weaned herself from the nursing cares of her mother on the day of her birth. It was an auspicious day for her and for this world. The "star of empire " appeared in the "West, stood over her cradle, and shed upon her brow its genial radiance and inspiring influence. Conscious of her native strength and the justice of her cause, she flung her star-spangled banner to the breeze, and when came the " tug of war," the God of battles gave her the victory. And now, having grown within a single century to be a mighty republic, may she still live on, pure as at her birth, and, still grow- ing in strength, make the coining centuries of the great future her stepping stones to advancement, and by her civilizing and Chris- tianizing influence elevate the nations of the earth to the level of a common brotherhood, and thus bequeath to all mankind the full and free enjoyment of equal rights and equal liberties. And may God grant that her star-spangled banner shall henceforth and forever float in triumph " O'er the land of the free and the home of the braTe." DEMOCKACY IN DANGER. AN ADDRESS BY REV. R. A. HOLLAND. DELIVERED IN CHRIST CHURCH, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI. There are two kinds of patriotism — one of instinct, the other of reason. Patriotism of instinct is attachment to a spot of ground, familiar scenes, inherited customs, a geographical name. It is the love of the fox for his hole, the fowl for her nest. In war a sort of magic, mobilizing men into instant armies reckless of death, in peace it encourages abuses and invites usurpations by defending every evil that may be done in the sacred name of country. " My country, right or wrong," is its confession of faith, and for fetish it worships a flag. Not in this spirit have we assembled to-day to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of our republic, but rather in the spirit of that more rational patriotism which loving truth, right, humanity first, loves country only in so far as these supreme ideas are or may be organized and administered in its policy. For govern- ments are not an end to themselves, but means for achieving an end which is higher, broader, more enduring. They exist for man, not man for them. The method by which he attempts to realize social aims, they change in form as one form after another fails of its task. Even if the form should be perfect in its adaptation to a particular stage of national growth. The continuance of such growth would by and bye require a change to suit A. piirwcuijir 9 stage of 11a- its enlarging needs. And whatever mav be the fate tional growth. ..,.?,,. of individual nations, whether or not their law is to mature and decay, the growth of the race is constant and im- parts its gains of experience to all institutions that are vital enough to assimilate them. Accordingly, experiments in govern- ment have not been without an order of succession and a cer- tain utility of failure. Failure warns against exact repetition. Men are not likely to go back to feudalism or despotism, the reigu ADDRESS REV. It. A. HOLLAND. CIO of one or of a few, for the models of future society. When only the few had knowledge and wealth, it was well that the few should govern ; but knowledge has now become common, and wealth diffuse. There are no longer in our civilization lord and vassal separated by an impassable gulf. The gulf has been closed by a middle class nobler in intelligence and richer in estate than baron- age. The rabble, as it was once called, has by co-operation, risen likewise in consciousness of power and stands before wealth and rank, with bare arms that on provocation might toss them both out of its way. One would have to bind one's eyes with fold on fold of prejudice not to see that the tendency of these changes is towards democracy; that, indeed, by peoples who have graduated from a state of pupilage and know their manhood, no other kind of government will be tolerated long unless in evident transition towards democracy. Within the present century we have seen Great Britain admit multitudes to a partnership in her crown, Spain elect a monarch who rules by popular consent, Italy unite under a sceptre wrought of suffrage and stronger than the keys of St. Peter, Russia eman- cipate her serfs, and France stunned by the horror of the first revolution and reeling between throne and tribune as if unable to collect her senses, finally ascend the latter with firm step and pro- claim the republic of peace. And still the tendency of governments sets in the same direc- tion, and gains impetuosity as it goes. Men have not to be harangued any more about liberty, equality, fraternity. These ere-while abstractions are household words ofpeace. UbUc defined by the heart. Liberty — the right of every man to be himself so far as his self-hood does not trench upon the same right in others ; equality — the level on which all men stand before the law, none born to rank or rule, each exercising the authority he obeys, sovereign that he may be subject, and subject that he may be sovereign ; and fraternity, which is identity of interest, abolition of caste, every man being as jealous of the rights of every other as of his own, and the strongest and wisest willing to bear vexation or hardship that the weak and ignorant may qualify themselves for self-government by the use of rights which, sven when least understood, foster self-respect, independence and 620 OUU NATIONAL JUBILEE. a lively concern in affairs of state, and thus serve for a moral education. The question is not whether democracy he the cheapest form of government, or the shrewdest, or the most facile, or the stoutest against inner or outer foes — in all which qualities superiority may be conceded to despotism ; but whether in spite of extravagance, blunders, caprice, it is not the best for man as man, worth its excess of cost in money and toil and sense of danger. Did monarchy impose small taxes, stimulate trade, render speedy and sure the process of law and lighten every load of government, the government would still weigh heavy on a shoulder that felt itself the bearer of a compulsory benefit. There is nothing in the power of government to bestow so precious as man's right to rule himself — a right which democracy simply admits and leaves free to take whatever form it will. Better manhood with liberty, though liberty run risk of license ; better manhood with equality, though equality sway to transcient rule of ignorance and vice; better manhood with fraternity, though fraternity may run for awhile into the clannish hate and envy of the commune ; better universal suffrage with all its drawbacks and dangers than any limitation of it that bars the birthright of the soul. Sooner or later, bv the verv discipline which their errors, with Bars the birth- J J . r •111*1. right of the the consequent sufferings, enforce, men will learn the art of self-government ; and the secret of that art when learned, will be little else than the wiser head and warmer heart and more helpful hand of a developed manhood. Nor is it mere moony vision or spread-eagle rapture to anticipate a democracy as vast as civilization. Be it for good or evil, the peoples will not rest until they have tried the experiment and tried it more than once. The might is theirs and they will exert it ; theirs is the right and it will justify the utmost exertion to throw off the yoke of titled accidents ; and if progress be the law of humanity, as it is of all things else, might and right must grow with time into graces of unity, peace and concord. Otherwise humanity is a predestined failure, and the ethics of its hope a lie. For what else is democracy in the purest notion of it but the religion of politics. It means faith in man and in his destiny ; it means that there is more of irood than of evil in his nature, and ADDRESS REV. R. A. HOLLAND. 621 that in the conflict between them the good shall triumph at last ; it means the supremacy of conscience over force, and of reason over prejudice and passion ; it means that men shall love their neigh- bors as themselves, and so adopts the golden rule for a civil con- stitution and charters the brotherhood of the race. This, I say, is the ideal state of society. Perhaps not to be attained for ages, it will yet be steadily approached by the ad- vance of civilization. The possibility of its attainment is bound up with no particular form of administration. Different forms may be wanted for different people, all forms will change with changing epochs ; but throughout differences and changes the spirit of democracy shall live and wax strong, healing whatever suspi- cions, discords, strifes afflict the body that grows meanwhile towards the fulness of the stature of a perfect man. But why these truisms about democracy ? For truisms they appear to the American mind. Is it necessary after a hundred years of democratic government to argue its utility and prophesy its permanence ? Yes, and therein is the saddest reflection of our Centennial holiday. Time was when the American people be- lieved in their institutions as an article of religion. To doubt their beneficence was heresy, as to fear for their perpetuity was treason. Such faith may have been child-like, but it was the substance of things hoped for. Its simplicity was justified by the rare auspices under .which the experiment of free government began. There were no old customs and traditions to cast away. The nation was new-born. No enemies threatened its young life. Oceans made a moat between it and foreign harm. A continent gave it room and its forthgoings of enterprise were but an athlete's pastime. It had a presentiment of high destiny, of some august mission to the world, and was exalted by that day-dream above everything mean and sordid. Here, it said, in this new world of nature, there shall be a new world of society. The old world is faint under oppression. The heaped up evil of a thousand years lies upon its breast, like -ZEtna on Enceladus. and the Titan' 1 unrest only heaves the mountain it cannot remove. Let ul begin afresh. Let the oppressed of every land come hither for asylum. There is room enough and to spare. There shall be no distinction of class, no alienage of race, no barrier of religion. As one people 622 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. equal and free, we will enact our own laws, elect our own officers to administer them in trust and call no man master. The old world looking hither shall see our glory and wonder as at a sunrise in the west. It was the invitation of youth, but there were many the wTst 186 ln y° ul 'g nearts fcltiat heeded it. They flocked hither on the winds. Cities were extemporized to shelter them, states multiplied by a kind of segmentation, habitations sprang up in the desert, and the wilderness and the solitary places were glad with surprise. Rough, perhaps, the people were, unsophisticated and grotesquely proud of their prerogative, but they had virtues which more than offset these defects. They were as devoted to the principles of their government as the Parsee to his sacred lire. These principles they talked over by fireside and church door, on the road, behind the plough, in the smithy and across the counter. "With heads bowed over the published reports of Congress, they listened to every word of its debates attentively enough to learn them almost by heart. By their very rights they were apprenticed to statesmanship, and the statesmanship they studied was that of Hamilton, of Jefferson, of Adams, of Madison, of Webster, of Calhoun — prophets whose mantle caught by no worthy successor, has fallen in the dust. Those were the poetic days of our politics ; bribery, stock-jobbing and embezzlement were unknown in high places ; the least suspicion soiled a public name ; official honor was as delicate and sensitive as virginity. Then the benefits of democracy were a truism, and only discoursed of in panegyric. But those days are no more. What contributed most to pre- serve their purity was the freshness of the ideas which engaged the minds of the people and which the people were striving to embody in their institutions. A great idea transfigures whatever it informs, whether an individual, a state or a church, and turns the coarsest tissue of organism through which it shines into radi- ance "exceeding white as snow." And such ideas are involved in the questions that engrossed the first thought of the nation. Was it to be a mere fasces of states, bound about an axe of common defence, or a nation indeed ? Was it to be self-blockaded for the protection of a guild, or open in trade to the world that its citizens might have .the benefit of the world's competition in its markets ? ADDRESS — REV. R. A. HOLLAND. G "Was it to be restricted or universal in suffrage ? The answers to these questions created parties, but they were parties breathed into by earnest thought and by such breath of life made living souls. They had a faith and a purpose, and sought to fix that faith and purpose in the framework of the republic. But the issues that divided them are now settled or ignored ; the great ideas that organized them have passed from thought into fact, or oblivion ; still the parties remain — remain without a soul. How can they be other than corrupt when they are but the carcasses of themselves. They use the old names for purposes wholly strange to their sig- nificance. They contend without hostility of opinion. They pre- sent the same statement of principles, each trying, however, in the artifice of it to construct the more tempting trap for votes. Both are in favor of economical government, of low tariff, of correcting abuses, of kindness to widows and orphans of dead soldiers, and of putting everybody in a good humor. Both avoid any declaration of belief that might cause a change of lines and the disruption of their compact and subservient organizations — organizations so compact and subservient as to belong to a set of men called bosses, who make a business of driving and trading their herded souls, which are too dull to hear the crack of a set of men called bosses. the caucus whip or too tame to bolt from under it. Every honest man must feel, even if he does not acknowl- edge, the dishonesty of such organizations, and whenever felt, and not renounced, that dishonesty is tainting his character. Hence the prevalent compromise between partisan- ship and virtue — a partition put into the conscience that one side may be kept clean for the ordinary duties of life, while the other is fouled by the use of party. Violation of the ballot is con* demned in the abstract as an assault on the republic's life, but covered up or excused when done for "the sake of one's party* Fraud is an abomination, and ought to be tied hand and foot and thrown into jail, but may be given a softer name and treated more tenderly — possibly allowed to escape and honored for its zeal when acting as the agent of one's party. Nevertheless, dishonesty is dishonesty ; dishonesty with one's self glides easily into dishonesty with others — dishonesty of alle- giance into dishonesty of broken trusts. It is no worse to steal the 624 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. people's money than to steal their votes. If party can connive at one, party may apologize for the other and defend it. Hence theft with arms elbow-deep in the treasury of cities ; theft shaking empty the overturned coffers of states ; theft of hard-earned savings from freedmen ; theft of dole from half-naked and half- starved Indians ; theft of wages from soldiers on the frontier ; theft from the graves of the nation's heroic dead ; theft of revenue, of customs, of appropriations to lay out public grounds, erect public edifices, build ships of war, carry mails, pave iron thorough- fares across the continent ; theft promoted in the name of civil-service reform, and given charge of the nation's exchequer. And why not ? Who cares but the opposite party, itself as slow to discover and as quick to condone the sins of its own adher- ents. No tremendous shock, no vast flaming up of indignation follows the exposure of the wholesale roguery. Certainly not ; the roughs are high-toned rogues. Gentlemen of the first- roiues OTled class ; eminent respectabilities — judges, are they, and governors and generals, and chairmen of congressional committees and senators, and ambassadors to foreign courts, and advisers of the president's council, who have stolen handsomely by tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands, and not like a low-bred felon. Let them off, your excellency, for the sake of their wives who have not hoarded the ill-gotten gain selfishly, but turned it into diamonds to decorate the drawing-rooms of the capital. Mollify their sentence, your honor, in consideration of their wealth, which should have kept them above temptation ; their age, which, sinned not from impulse, but with veteran deliberation ; their influence, which spreads all the further the corruption of a bad example. Has not justice ever demanded that punishment should be severe according to the distress, inexperience and obscurity of the culprit ? And you, gentlemen of the jury, acquit, by all means acquit ; innocent or guilty, still acquit any whom to convict would be to graze, if not to pierce, the head of the nation. I trust that those who hear me will not think that in these words I wish to aid one party by branding the other. I am not a partisan. I have never cast a partisan vote. I have no preference for Democrat or Republican, as such. I have no ADDRESS — REV. R. A. HOLLAND. 625 reason to believe that the party now out of power would with- stand the temptations of fifteen years of absolute sway more successfully than the party has done which still controls the emoluments of the administration. Both parties seem to me notionless, without aim beyond the getting or keeping of power by any sort of clap-trap, and therefore, morally dead, their activity being the activity of rot. What boots the promise of reform from men who, to fulfil that promise, must padlock their own hands ? The pledges of a national convention, are they worth any more than the pledges of such men ? Is not the conven- tion itself a huge trick ? Pretending to represent the people, it represents, with few exceptions, a class whom the people ought to detest as mountebanks. The primary meetings which elect the delegates are packed by bummers, who take their cue from local bosses, and the delegates nearly all are office-holders or office-seekers, who in turn are wire-pulled by a clique that prepares their work in advance, and prompts every detail of it. Before the convention assembles, traffic has been going on between aspirants and those who have part in the privilege of nomination ; if not traffic in coin, traffic in promises of office, for promises of support, which is bribery as real and as gross. When the convention organizes, it organizes for any other object than to deliberate and choose as becomes the pretending representatives of half a nation ; deliberation is confounded by hired shouts and hisses of clans that strive for their respective favorites, and choice waits impatient on a signal to desert its real favorite for the ranks of the winning chief. And this body of politicians who hope by electing their candidate for the presidency to elect themselves to a share of his patronage, this body which is spurious from its earliest conception in a ward-meeting to its expiring resolve, would cozen the people again and again with oaths of reform. Reform, indeed ! Will it reform itself out of existence ? When votes are not sought for the maintenance of a principle, what other motive can explain the zeal, the expense, the labor with which they are solicited ? Not the excellence of candidates, since candidates are never chosen for their excellence, but for their availability in pushing the ends of party ; not the enthusiasm of the party's rank ami file, which are apathetic 620 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. until uproused by the appeals of interested leaders who urge on the canvass. What then but greed for place, power, perqui- sites ? — the fenris wolf whose jaws it is the first duty of reform to gag and split asunder ! Reform, therefore, is impossible by parties so long as they exist in their present organizations, and the civil service of the country is labelled with the motto : " To the victors belong the spoils." In this service are thousands of offices that have no relation to questions of civil polity. The assessment and col- " To the victors , . „ , , . - 1 belong the lection of taxes, the stamping of money, award ot patents, distribution of mails, arrest, prosecution and punishment of criminals, are simply wheels and bands in the machinery of government, and should move the same under all changes of administration. As well dismiss all notaries public, or teachers of public schools, or officers of the army with every turn of an election as the persons engaged in this equally routine work. Yet, however faithful and expert, they must retire when another party than that to which they belong marches into possession of the nation's offices, for " to the victors belong the spoils." Even while in office they hang there on the pleasure of their patron, and may be cut off at any hour; com- petency counts for nothing unless it be competency to further his schemes. Flunkeyism is the most profitable type of character. Salaries are paid less for service to the country than for service against it. These salaries are then docked by the dispensers of patronage, who chastise complaint with forfeiture of the office itself; and so the nation's work is neglected, her interests betrayed, her revenues squandered, her industry stricken prone that " to the victors may belong the spoils." Said one high in position, who lost his official hand by thrusting it into this soul-grinding machine to check some of its operations : " No sooner is a man in place than his rivals or enemies are on his track, ready to prove that he was the most unfit person that could be chosen, and that the party will be utterly demoral- ized if he is not instantly removed and his place given to another. If a month or two were all that is wasted in this employment it would be bad enough ; but the truth is, that by far the larger part of the time of the president and all the members of his ADDRESS — REV. R. A. HOLLAND. 027 cabinet is occupied by this worse than useless drudgeiy during the whole term of his office, and it forms literally and abso- lutely the staple of their work. It is, therefore, no figure of speech to say that administering the government means the distribution of its offices, and that its diplomacy, finance, military, naval and internal administration are the minor affairs which the .settled policy of the country has relegated to such odds and ends >f tims as may be snatched from the greater cares of office." — Hon. J. D. Cox. Think you then that a party, of its own free will and accord, will surrender the hope of these spoils so dear, which hope alone holds it together from commander-in-chief down to the corporal of the curbstone who drums up recruits with a dram of whiskey? No. Never will that hope be surrendered except at the demand of the people breaking loose from party and bent on deliverance from wrongs which have been suffered until they become insufferable. And the man who leads that uprising to victory, will save the republic from a greater peril than threatened its life in civil war. Has the hour come, and the man ? But there is another danger to Democracy. The country has grown rich with almost magic suddenness. Its great ..... .... . Another dan- extent of sou, inexhaustible mineral resources, uni- «rr t» Democ- versal opportunity of profitable labor, together with the rapid influx of population which these attract, have made the pursuit of wealth a mania. It is as if money had been showering from the sky, and men had postponed all other thought than to pick up a fortune before the miracle was over. Thus, the very ease with which the repub- lic prospered has been an injury to its permanent welfare ; since that ease gave quiet to patriotism and excited avarice. As a result avarice is to-day the ruling passion of Americans. More with us than with any other nation does money regulate the scale of society. Money is our rank, our morality ; in the hand hushes all inquest as to how it was got — commands like omnipotence. In our haste to be rich honest work for moderate wages is despised. Speculation runs mad. The activity of commerce exceeds its material. Values are fictitious and fluctuate every hour. Busb 628 OUR. NATIONAL JUBILEE. ness gambles in contingencies and banks heavily on the future. Mutual sense of risk in all transactions tenders off-hand compromise to debt, and debt freed from its awe of obligation rushes into extravagance ; and extravagance is the quicksand where through contracts made not to be kept, mendacity, disregard of the rights of others, manhood, sinks towards utter loss of self-respect, at once its death and burial. But self-respect is the very spirit of democ- racy, and the spirit gone, nothing remains but the rule of the mob ; insanest of tyrannies ! Again, out of our haste to be rich have risen numerous corporations which mass the capital of many in one giant stock with a giant's grasp. By such combinations the evils of individual avarice are aggravated. Division of responsi- bility among the members of a board and the impersonal nature of their operations renders them more unscrupulous and fearless than they each would be in a solitary enterprise. Having no existence but for money-making, the corporation regards all other existence from that stand-point. Soulless itself, it is without faculty to recognize the soul. It looks upon laws as commodities and those who enact and execute them as commission-brokers. Life, labor, commerce, art, politics and religion seem to it various phases of a melee whose prizes are for the strongest, and the cor- poration is the strongest. Individuals must die, corporations may be perpetual. Individual estates must dissolve and mingle again with the current wealth ; the estates of corporations may stay entire and increase age after age. Already among us are some of these giants, yet in their youth, that own cities, hold liens on States, step off their acreage to the width of a continent and wear county-courts, common councils, legislatures and congress on their ring fingers. Compare their bold predatory course with the halt and blind policy of the parties which have charge of our institu- tions and answer if their continued aggrandizement does not bode ill to democracy. But there is a more serious danger yet. Old parties may cor- rupt, but their corruption is decay, and from that decay new parties will spring into life ; corporations, while buying &mgeryet! 0UB special legislation, aid in developing the wealth of the country and are sure to incur popular wrath whenever their exorbitancies gall — provided the ballot remains pure and ADDRESS — REV. R. A. HOLLAND. 629 efficient. It is by the ballot that the people think, repent, resolve, and carry their mind into conduct. They may think slowly, but by errors they will at last learn truth ; they may repent late, but the later the repentance the sorer the conscious need of reform ; they may hesitate long to act, but the hesitation sharpens the exi gency that will spur them to swifter and more irresistible action when they start. Thus the ballot may educate them through evil into habits of forethought, of vigilance, of prompt exertion. But u ithout purity and efficiency the ballot is worse than useless — it is an imposition. The people do not govern themselves, but are governed by unknown usurpers. Safer a Cassar crowned for ser- vices to the state, or the weak heir of a name constrained by the glare of a kingdom's eyes — " That fierce light which beats upon a throne, And blackens every blot — " Than these despots of the dark. What the ark was to Israel the ballot should be to the American people, and their love of liberty should act like a divine presence to palsy the hand that profanea it. Nor is such profanation menaced, as some apprehend, chiefly by ignorance. Ignorance may be reverent and cautious as well as rash. Besides, who are the ignorant of a nation ? Capitalists are ignorant as well as workingmen. Students of one branch of knowledge are ignorant of many other branches. The most learned think of themselves as learners still. There are no standard text- books of government, acquaintance with which may be demanded as a necessary qualification for suffrage, nor is any distinction valid between those who hold different theories of government and those who hold no theory at all. It was Milton who rebuked the gram- marian, and said : " Whosoever he be, though from among the dregs of the common people, that you are so keen upon, whoso- ever, I say, has sucked in this principle, that he was not born for his prince but for God and his country — he deserves the reputation of a learned and an honest and a wise man more, and is of greater use in the world, than yourself." Moreover in the people wise and unwise are mixed together, and the difference between them melts away with time. The philosophy of one generation is the proverb of the next. Before Adam Smith had been dead a cen« 630 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. fairy there was a realm of Adam Smiths. A word of fire went forth from a private citizen of Boston, and a score of years after- wards, he heard its effect in the cannonade of armies and the clank of a million falling chains. No, the danger to democracy is not so much in ignorance as in indifference. The poor man loves his franchise for the sense of equality with the richest which it confers, and the villain is as sure to vote as a hawker to cry his wares. It is the men of culture who least esteem the privilege and therefore are most apt to neglect it. They feel degraded in an occupation which cheapens their culture to a par with boorishness and venality. Considering themselves the few, and the base and unlettered the many, they think of the rule of the majority as inevitably a rule of ignorance and vice — the inversion of social order. And their despondency would be reasonable, their indifference blameless, if the functions and duties of the ballot were confined to the mere depositing of votes. But the ballot includes all the mental and moral forces that enlighten the judgment and influence the will of the voters. In that work the few are not necessarily a minority ; intelligence has sway equal to its worth, and character is more than a multitude. Howbeit, character needs time to count itself. The fool can say his folly in a minute, but the speech of understanding is slow. By acting on these principles in certain crises of state, character has demonstra- ted its supremacy. But why wait for crises to do what might be better done and with less fatigue by steady work ? Is it because such work seems a disproportionate task for the few ? Nature everywhere joins rare responsibility to rare endowments. The most favored citizens are by their very condition detailed to stand guard for the rest. They must watch while others sleep. Tyran- ny is an insidious thing, and it is for them to detect its crawl in the slightest abuse and transfix the snake before it raises its head to strike. When majorities begin to corrupt, they should be the first to revolt, and by concerted action baffle the hope of plunder and confuse the discipline of party. The wretch of a Suiider h ° pe wll ° interferes with the ballot they should lynch with their scorn as one who had attempted to gar- rote Liberty herself for debauchment. Gentlemei, churchmen, does your conscience acknowledge the ADDRESS REV. R. A. HOLLAND. 631 high obligation ? Thou, as men of conscience, to your duty. The dilletantism that pleads refinement in a neglect of duty is cowardice, as mean a vice as any that begrimes the riff-raff it would shun. Wherever citizens meet to discuss public interests, you should be seen and heard and felt. Wherever place hunters plot in caucus against the commonwealth you should not shrink from going to spy out their mischief that it may be brought to judgment. Least of all can you afford to countenance or even seem to wink at the pettiest falsehood, or fraud, or meddling with the perfect candor of the people's choice. And when the hour of darkness falls and men's hearts are failing them for fear — who, if not you, shall be the forlorn hope of the republic and rally its discouraged forces ? Liberty has man}' sons and loves them all ; but some know her only by the look of cheer that blesses their toil, and others by the hand-clasp that has led them into opportunities of wealth and honor ; and others by her sentinel step around the altar-places of the soul, its love of truth and freedom of worship ; while to a few she has confided her whole heart, her good intentions to men, and anxiety lest men should mar their fulfilment by distrust, and all her lifelong dream of a perfect race. Who of these sons should love her most ? And if these who should love most because most trusted with love, hetray, is there any treason that can be likened to their treachery ? Such are some of the most serious dangers that confront Amer- ican democracy in its hundredth year. Doubtless they have been precipitated and made worse by the war through which it has re- cently passed. All war is savagery, and to prosecute war, civil- ization must forget its moral achievements and return to the instincts of the forest and jungle. However righteous the aim of a war, in the fury of strife, it is remembered only to license these instincts which, as soon as let slip, speed to havoc. Since, not the army only, but the whole people fight, we may expect, if the fight is protracted, that the savage instincts of the people will run so wild that morality cannot readily call them back into leash. Fero- city, deceit and lust of pillage having survived the occasion that allowed them, will henceforth seek their prey by the stratagems of peace. Defects of government they will take to for cover and follow the scent of an evil tendency as a jackal noses out distant 632 OUR NATIONAL JUBILEE. carrion. Thus, while the late war revealed the nation's strength, it likewise revealed or prepared the revelation of the mil ion's weakness. That strength is the devotion of the masses to the great ideas embodied in our constitution ; that weakness is the ease with which the masses are duped by a catch-word of party to intrust their government to men who filch its treasures or waste, them in subsidizing corporations which grow fat only to want more, and which in order to get all they want would rob the people of their last liberty, a state of things already so bad that the better class of citizens have begun to lose heart, and by despondency are abetting the evil they deplore. Nevertheless, melancholy as the situation is, I see no cause to despair. The weakness of Democ- racy seems to me the weakness of strength. Dangers beset all governments and will beset them until men are perfect, and then government shall no longer be needed. We are not in the millennium that we should throw up our hands at si