^^M^^^^ HON.J.L.M.CllRRY,LLO DELIVERED IH PJCHMOND^ On 22d October, BY REQUEST OF Class t^T^if i LESSONS OF THE YORKTOWNCENrTiLT la^maaa^ aV>--%^^" ,.-' HonJ.L M.CURRY, LLD. DELIVERED IN RICHMOND, On 22d October, 1881^ BY REQUEST OF THE CITY COUNCIL. RICHMOND : biSPATCH STEAM PRINTING HOUSE. (^ -'^J^^tKT^S^ . • JA.^ 2 1904 0. ofO, Richmond and the Yorktown Centennial, Desirous that Richmond should express, in some becoming manner, her interest in the Centennial of the surrender at Yorktown, the City Council at the April meeting adopted a resolution appointing a committee, and charging them with the duty of taking such steps as would ensure an appropriate cele- bration in the city. This committee, known as the Centennial Committee, was organized as follows; Judge Jno. A. Meredith, Chairman, J. T. Ellyson, Chas. L. Todd, M. T. Clarke. Chas. F. Taylor, Dr. Jno. S. Wellford, E.A.Saunders, Jno. a. Curtis, N. D. Hargrove. Ben. T. August, Secretary. At their July meeting the following resolutions were adopted by the two branches of the City Council, and approved by the Mayor, July 22, 1881 : Resolved, the Cowwon Council concurri?ig, That to the Council Committee on the Yorktown Centennial are hereby referred all matters pertaining to the proper celebration by the City of Richmond of the Yorktown Centennial. They shall have full power to make all arrangements for a proper display in this city during the Centennial ; to receive and suitably entertain distinguished guests and visiting organizations ; and do all else which in their opinion shall be necessary properly to sustain the dignity of this city during this important and interesting time. And they shall be authorized to form sub-committees from the citizens of this city, and fully carry out their plans. Resolved further, That the sum often thousand dollars, (|;io,ooo,) or so much as may be necessary, be appropriated for this purpose, and that the same be placed to the credit of tliis Committee, to be disbursed as other funds of the city are. The Council of Richmond having learned with pleasure that His Excellency, the President of the United States and his Cabinet, will visit the city, as the guests of the Virginia .State Agricultural .Society, during the Yorktown Cen- tennial; tiierefore be it Resolved, the Common Council concurring^. That the Council Committee on the Yorktown Centennial be and are hereby directed to extend to His Excel- lency, the President of the United States and his Cabinet, such a reception and attention during their stay in this city, as Will properly express the sentiments and feelings of our people, and as is befitting the exalted rank of our distin- guished visitors. Resolved, the Common Council concurring. That the Council Committee of the Yorktown Centennial be and they are hereby instructed to invite the rep- resentatives of tlie 1-Veiicli ( iovernment to visit the city during tlie celebration of the Yorktown Centennial, and bestow upon them such attention as their exalted rank and official station entitle them to at our hands. Resolved, the Coninwn Council concurring, That the Committee on Finance be and they are hereby instructed to place |5,ooo, or so much thereof as may be necessary, to the credit of the Council Committee on the Yorktown Cen- tennial, to be used in the manner indicated in the abf)ve resolutions, or for such other purposes as will carry out the objects for wliicli they were apiiointed. For weeks the Centennial Committee was busy arranging a programme. The city was gaily decorated, as never before in its history ; triumphal arches and statues were erected at many prominent points, and private citizens vied with the authorities in the variety and richness of their decorations. The formal commencement of the Richmond ceremonies, on Saturday, October 22d, was a great success. The oration, by Hon. J. L. M. Curry, the Dispatch says, " was for appropriateness of design, excellence of literary work, and eloquence in delivery, well worthy to be classed with that of the Hon. Mr. VVinthrop at Yorktown." On Friday, October 21, the distinguished French and Germans, wlio had been visiting Yorktown as the guests of the Government t)f the United States, arrived in Richmond, and were met at the wharf by the committee and formally welcomed in a handsome speech by His Honor, Mayor W. C. Carrington. They then called upon His Excellency, Gov. F. W. M. Holliday, and afterwards visited points of interest in the city ; spent a few hours in the afternoon at the Virginia State Agricultural Fair, and at night were enter- tained at a grand reception given in their honor at the Allan mansion^ cor- ner 5th and Main streets. A large number of strangers visited the city during "centennial week." It is estimated that more than twenty thousand were in the city on the day of the " Grand Society and Trades Parade," and at least twenty-five thousand persons witnessed the display of fireworks in the Capitol Square on the night of October 26th. The Grand .Stand, from which the oration was delivered and all the reviews made, was located in the Capitol Square, on the north side of the capitol and opposite the statue of Stonewall Jackson. The committee selected the following street decorations, which were fur- nished by the well known artists, Messrs. R. T. Daniel, Jr., John A. Elder, and William L. Shepperd, of this city, and the well known public decorator of Washington, D. C, Henry T. Reh, who decorated the stand from which President Garfield delivered his inaugural address : Decoration No. 1 — Colonial arch, corner of Broad and First streets. Decoration No. 2— National arch, corner of Broad and .Seventh streets. Decoration No. 3— Norman arch, corner Broad and Twelfth streets. Decoration No. 4 — Beacon light, representing a woman holding a light in her hand. This was placed on Libby Hill, corner Twenty-ninth and Main streets. Decoration No. 5— A French design, corner Franklin and .Second streets. Decoration No. 6 — Statue of Liberty, corner of Main and l'"ifth streets. Decoration No. 7 — A g^rand welcome arch, corner of Main and Tvvelftii streets. The decorations on Main and Broad streets were illuminated at night with the electric light, which was used in our city for the first time. Capt. G. A. Ainslie was Chief of the Trades Parade Division. Capt. L. L. Bass was Chief Marshall of all the parades, and was assisted by the following members of his staff: James B. Pace, John M. Higgins, Col- onel William H. Palmer, A. Bargamin, Charles Talbot, George N. Wood- bridge, Colonel H. T. Douglas, Christian Unkel, R. Ferrandini, Miles Cary, General P. T. Moore, Colonel Archer Anderson, Moses Hutzler, Charles P. Stokes, Lewis D. Crenshaw, Jr., Henry T. Wickham, Major A. R. Courtney, Major A. W. Garber, Charles E. Boiling, Henry Bodeker, and Z. W. Pickrell. The reception committee in charge of the grand stand consisted of James D. Patton (chairman), William R. Trigg, H. H. Wilkins, Louis Pizzini, Sam- uel B. Witt, J. S. Crenshaw, Herman Boschen, Gus. Millhiser, Charles H. Simpson, John Hagan, Wyndham Meredith, Charles Brown, David Ainslie, Walter Upshur, James Augustine, William Preston, and Robert Curtis. A bureau for the reception and entertainment of visitors was organized, with headquarters at T210 Main street. The meetings of the Centennial Committee were usually held in the Chan- cery Court room. The following programme,, which was arranged by the Centennial Commit- tee, aflTorded much pleasure to our people, and the festivities of this centen- nial occasion will be long and pleasantly remembered by those who wit- nessed them. "^m^tmmmt^ MONDAY, OCTOBER 17TH, ioj4 A. M. Review by Governor Holliday, Mayor Carrington, and the Council of Ricli- mond, of the First Virginia Brigade, commanded by General Fitzhugh Lee; Thirteenth Regiment National Guards of New York, First Regiment National Guards of Connecticut, and other military. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2 P. M. Formal connnencement of the Richmond ceremonies. PROGRAMME. Mayor \V. C. Carrington, Presiding. MUSIC. Prayer by Bishop F. M. Whittle. MUSIC. Address of Welcome by the Mayor. MUSIC. Reading of the Declaration of Independence by Scholars of the Richmond High School. MUSIC. Oration by Hon. j. L. M. Curry. .MUSIC. MONDAY, OCTOBER 24TH, 8/2 P. M. Review by Governor Holliday, Mayor Carrington and tiie Council, of tiie Grand German Historical Tableau.x and Torch-Light Procession. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25TI1. Parade of the Manchester Ragnuiffins. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26TH. 11;^ A. M. Review of the Grand Society and Trades Parade. 8 P. M. Grand Concert and Display of Fire-works. ADDRESS, Mr. Mayor, Gentlemen of the Council, and Fellow- Citizens : The Centennial of the Surrender at Yorktown having been ah'eady so elaborately and grandly celebrated — France, Germany and the United States participating — by laying the corner-stone of fit monument, by music, and ode, and address, by military and naval display, by multitudes of visitors of various nationalties, it may be asked why this vast assembly, why this additional commemoration ? It has reference to the past and the present, and projects itself into the future. The inquiry has also been cynically made, why, after the national jubilee at Yorktown, Virginia or Richmond should undertake to supplement by a celebration confined to State or city limits? Few cities in the new world are more historic than Richmond. No occasion should ever be omitted of recording our gratitude to the patriots through whose wise and heroic etforts we are able to re- joice in a hundred years of self-government. No proper measures should be lett urmsed for awakening in the minds and hearts of the young a fervent love of country, and a firm determination, by every personal and civic virtue, to make perpetual what our fore- fathers began. Besides being the theatre of the final struggle, we have the testimony of an eminent living New Englander, that upon the action of Virginia, and her great and glorious sons, hung and hinged the destinies of our country at the period of the Declaration. "Without Virginia, without her Patrick Henry among the people, her Lees and Jefiersons in the forum, and her Wash- ington in the field, I will not say that the cause of American Lib- erty and American Independence must have been ultimately de- feated — no, no; there was no ultimate defeat for that cause in the decrees of the most High ! — but it must have been delayed, post- poned, perplexed, and to many eyes and to many hearts rendered semingly hopeless." In seeking to perform the high and honorable service which the City Council has required of me, I shall omit historic detail. The distinguished orator, chosen by the joint committee of Con- 8 gress, whose whole Hfe has been an illustration of private worth and public virtue, in an address combining literary culture, historic research, broad patriotism, many of the excellencies of Tacitus and Livy in its graphic descriptions and philosophic generaliza- tions, has done that work so well and completely, that hereafter Yorktown and the actors in the capitulation will be associated with the name of Winthrop. Be mine the task of gathering, for fresh meditation, some of the principles evolved by the Hevolu-' tionary struggle, to point out some of the dangers to the Kepublic, and to stimulate afresh a noble and unconquerable purpose to transmit not simply unimpaired, but enlarged and perfected^, the essential ideas of free representative institutions. The battle of Yorktown occurred at a critical period in our Revolutionary history. Fortunately, the French had come gal- lantly to our succor. The timel}' help rallied despairing spirits of the Colonists, and Virginia, from the contingencies of the war, became the focus of the struggle. To French and American com- manders it became apparent that here the decisive blow must be struck. Virginia thus became the pivotal point on which revolved hopes and prospects. Here energies were concentrated, armies and fleets converged, the lines of the enveloping circle gradually but surely contracted. Lord Cornwallis had previously written, " If we mean an oft'ensive war in America, we must abandon New York and bring our whole force into Virginia; we have there a stake to fight for, and a successful battle may give us America." Again, on the 18th of April, 1781, he says: "If, therefore, it should appear the interest of Great Britain to maintain what she already possesses and to push the war in the Southern provinces, I take the liberty of giving it as my o[>iiiion that a serious attempt upon Virginia would be the most solid plan." And he subsequently speaks of Virginia as " that powerful province not easily to be frightened by small British expeditions, or even by large ones." Writing to Sir Henry Clinton from Byrd's plantation, north of the James river, on May 26, 1781, Lord Cornwallis says : " I shall now proceed to dislodge Lafayette from Richmond." And he concludes : <' I shall take the liberty of repeating that if oflensive war is intended, V^irginia appears to me the only province in which it can be carried on and in which there' is a stake." 9 This movement of Cornwallis, in course of time, led to the con- centration of both armies, and the Old Dominion, scarred so oft in her life by hoof of horse and tread of soldiery, sheltered friend and foe upon her sacred bosom. Rhe holds Yorktown and she holds Appomattox — scenes of the two most noted and fruitful capitulations of this continent and of the last century. As from all sections we gathered at Yorktown on the 19th and here again to-day, let us bury all animosities and go back to the period of the surrender on the I'eninsula and, with increased devotion, re- dedicate ourselves to the principles secured by the Revolution and our united country to the preservation of all that was won in the contest of 1781. As the whole world met in common sympathy at Garfield's death; as Queen and royal family, and ministry and press and pulpit, and people of Great Britain sat among the chief mourners in our bitter hour of national desolation, we should rise above all national prejudices and hates, and consecrate all powers and possibilities for the brotherhood of man, for the rights of humanity. Daniel Webster, in one of the most beautiful similes of the English language, spoke of the morning drum beat follow- ing the sun, keeping company with the hours and circling the earth daily with one unbroken strain of the martial airs of Eng- land. So in our late bereavement, for a nobler purpose, in proof of the kinship of the human family, the electric telegraph — making earth as sensitive as the globe of the sorceress of Thalaba — thrilled with million messages of tenderness, and bound all tribes and peoples and tongues in an unbroken circle of love and sym- pathy. Many of the best and truest of England's sons deplored the royal infatuation and ministerial folly which inflicted wrongs on America, and justified the resistance of the Colonies. Pitt said the war against us was '* conceived in injustice and nurtured in folly," and that the ineificient victories were " obtained over men struggling in the holy cause of liberty." Great Britain, in the war waged against her Colonies, forgot herself, her true interests, her ancient principles, the instructive lessons of her own grand his- tory. Gladstone said that our revolution was, in the main, like the revolution of 1688, " a vindication of liberties inherited and possessed." A recent English writer says, " the war of Indepen- dence was virtually a second English civil war. The ruin of the 2 10 American cause would have been also the ruin of the constitil' tional cause in England ; and a patriotic Englishman may revere the memory of Patrick Henry and George Washington not less justly than the patriotic American." The Declaration of Independence, just read so eliectively by pupils of the High 8chool, was an assertion and a prophecy, Yorktown was a verification and a fulfillment. The one was inchoate, contingent, uncertain, anticijiatory ; the other, after long, weary years of hope deferred, bitter disappointments, harass- ing anxieties, meditated treason, diminishing resources, depreci- ating currency, contracting territory and painful reverses, was glad, joyous, triumpliant completion. The pledge was redeemed, and the impoverished Colonies, smitten and wounded of the archers, emerged from the baptism of fire and blood, and the dove of peace alighted on the head' of the new States as they took their place among the free and independent sovereignties of the world. As the seers of a century ago tried with straining e.yes to penetrate the future and read the history, how little was under- stood or conjectured of the magnificent destiny that awaited the infant Republic. Our fathers did not anticipate results which nei- ther legend, nor fable, nor myth adumbrated. Bells, bonfires, illuminations, thanksgivings, multitudinous rejoicings, testified their hopes and gratitude; but they built in the new Government wiser than they knew. Products of collective action are often beyond the voluntary and conscious designs of individual actors. Structures, like languages and civilizations, that excite wonder and puzzle the historical investigator, were built by men who did not conceive, even dimly, the permanence and glory of their work. Reluctant as was the royal assent to the treaty of peace, the separation has been highly beneficial to Great Britain. The Uni- ted States are more profitable to her than are any of her colo- nies. For the fiscal year ending 30th June, 1881, total exports of merchandise Irom the United States, $902,377,346 ; total exports to the united kingdom of Great Bntain and Ireland, $481,135,- 078. Through a " colossal trade, each makes contributions to the wealth and comfort of the other." This eldest born of England's children, unexampled in " the rapidity and force" of her develop- ment, has set the example of self-government, and Great Britain, seeing the success, is, " by judicious devolution of governmental 11 functions" upon her Colonies, lightening the cares of her Parlia- ment. One of her historians has said that the surrender at York- town " modified, for all times to come, the connection between every Colony and every parent State." America illustrates the principles of free government, and gives to them, and to the matchless common law% wider scope and larger application than they have had elsewhere. " Ko parallel in all the world," says the greatest of British statesmen, "to the case of that prclilic mother, wlio has sent forth her innumerable children over all the earth, to be the founders of half a dozen Empires." Superlative in the world's eye and in history among these children, he adds, is the American Republic; "certainly the wealthiest of all the nations," with " a natural base for the greatest continuous Empire ever established by man." If our Revolution was a vindication of in- herited liberties and an evolution from antecedent English germs ; if it was specially conservative, and made provision for the future in conformit}' with what had been claimed as the birth-rights of British subjects ; if the representative system had its genesis in England ; then it may be asked, why the rebellion and the seven years of bloody strife? The answer has been partially given. England forgot her own principles, or limited their application to England and Scotland. George III and Lord North were repre- sentatives of much ignorance, passion, pride, perverseness and insolence, and of an ambition to have some below who could be called our subjects, our Colonies, our dependencies. (See Burke's Bristol speech.) The jypomen of America resented this mental attitude and arbitrary assumptions of foreign governors, and had a juster appreciation of what was at stake. Taxes, it is true, were not heavy ; large liberties were possessed and freely exercised, and our Revolution, in an unprecedented degree, was one of principle. Our ancestors went to war for a preamble. Historians, in the mellow radiance of after years, often attribute to hatred of arbi- trary power or romantic attachment to liberty what was prompted by selfish, or pecuniary, or ambitious motives. The Revolution of 1688, a glorious epoch in English history, a white day in the cal- endar of popular enfranchisement, we now know had much in it that was selfish and base. Men zealously promoted it who, all their life long, had preached and practised cruelest intolerance and abject non-resistance to "The right divine of kings to govern wrong." . 12 Ours was exceptionally in defence of abstractions. The sharp and bitter contention was prolonged at immense sacrifice, and with a heroic display of patience, fortitude, coin*a.oe and devotion to lib- erty, until loyalty to trans-Atlantic Sovereigns was effaced, and independence and separation became the only possible terms of settlement. The surrender at Yorktown brought peace and the full recogni- tion of the independence of the iStates. The exigencies of the war had demonstrated the looseness and inefRciency of the Articles of Confederation, (which by a severe irony were to unite the colo- nies " in a perpetual union,") and the necessity of a stronger gov- ernment with better defined powers. Hence, a new government was formed, a democratic, representative federal republic, the States confederating and establishing a government under a writ- ten constitution. The British government " proceeded from the womb and long gestation of progressive history ; " ours was " the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man." Much, of course, was borrowed. The framers of our Constitutional Republic were no Utopian dreamers, but they wisely extracted the philosophy of history, availed them- selves of the victories wrung from the unwilling hands of royal and ecclesiastical despots, sagaciously incorporated into the frame- work of the new government the principles wrought out by the Sidneys, the Russells, the Vanes, the Miltons, the liampdens of the mother country. There were, however, newer applications of old truths, clearer definitions of rights, more guarded security against some wrongs, better protection of minorities, stricter limitations upon the grants of power, and the clear, unmistakable proclama- tion that government derives all power from the consent of the governed. As President Lincoln epigrammatically expressed it, ours is " a government of the people, by the [leople, and for the people." Ours is the most luminous and beneficent examjtle of self-government. (A distinguishing principle is the self-govern- ment of separate, politicah communities which, retaining their au- tonomy, their self-hood, are yet united for international and for some other general purposes in a common government. Our Union is not of individuals in the aggregate, as a totality, but of States as political organisms. The preservation of State autonomy, of separate and equal political communities, having the functions and departments of free governments, and yet nnder a central government with power to prevent dissolution, was a discovery in politics that makes free institutions possible in and over a territory flanked by remote oceans. While the General Government deals with foreign nations, and performs certain duties not safely lelt to local communities, the States discharge the larger number of gov- ernmental duties, and to them the citizens look for the guaranty of the rights and obligations growing out of the relations of hus- band and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, teacher and pupil, employer and employed. It is not easy in creations of art or in nature to find apt similitudes expressive of the relations of the General Government and the States. There stands before us a magnificent monument of granite and bronze, one of the finest works of art adorning modern capitals. On the broad and dura- ble foundations, from a common level, arises a group of figures. On the lower plane are Jefferson, Marshall, Henry, Mason, Lewis and Nelson — Virginians all — tj'pes of Statesmanship, of eloquence, of judicial and political wisdom, of adventure, each distinct and individualized. On the same base, but lifted higher, sits proudly erect on graceful charger the peerless and immortal, veneration paid to whom, until time shall be no more, " will be a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue." So our States, equal, separate, grand, standing on a basis of necessary equality, have, springing out of them, a part of them, yet occupy- ing a higher plane, with broader sweep and wider vision, the Federal Government, revered, honored, loved by the States as those men honored, revered, and loved their immortal chief, the commander of the allied forces at Yorktown. Under this local self-government we claim to have made most successful advances "towards the true aim of rational politics." Full scope is given to self-reliance and self-action. Self-help is en- couraged instead of slavish and enervating dependence upon gov- ernment. Centralization is mistrusted. This principle finds ex- pression and outcome in municipal, communal, local governments, (in 1870 there were 2,164 organized counties, besides towns and cities,) as well as in more difficult and complicated State govern- ments, and thus public virtue, independence, self-mastery, educa- tion in civic duties, production and training of men as magistrates and legislators, are evoked. 14 IIow far the oniinoiis detects in Parliamentary government in England, the dead-locks in the House of Commons, the success of the obtitructive policy of the malcontents, the complaints about waste of time and garrulity in debate, the conferring of "urgency" powers upon Speaker and Cabinet, the neglect of needed legisla- tion and the afi'ccting to legislate upon a thousand local and administrative details, are attributable to the want of local govern- ments, this is not the time nor place to consider. Conjoined with and auxiliary to this self-government are publicity of executive, judicial and legislative action, and liberty of thought, speech and press, which are the vital air of freedom. Another distinguishing feature of our American institutions, the outgrowth of Yorktown and of national independence, is the recognition and development of the individual man in equality of personal rights and privileges. In European and Asiatic countries the individual man is in subjection to the State, and treatment of subject by sovereign or government is often regarded as ultimate, inviolable, irreversible. Alan is the servant of the State, lives for the State. In America the reverse is the accepted truth. The Government is for the peojile, not for the few, but for the whole people, is subject to them, bringing its ministry to them, and duty, and loyalty, and patriotism, and personalit}', tlourish most when they are in harmony with the power and authority of the State. This does not mean that the people may rule when and where and how they please. Liberty and law do not antagonize. Government, as a handmaid of freedom, as a means of securing personal liberty, is a civil organism with established law, and order, and authority; and the spontaneous, irregular, undisciplined clamor of the populace is not the will of the people, for their will finds legitimate expression and becomes authoritative, only when uttered and ascertained in strictest accordance with pre-ordained forms and methods. We vote as we please, in subordination to law and eternal verities, and there the right ends. The will of the majority, fairly, legally, constitutionally expressed, is the will of the people. An officer thus chosen, or a law properly enacted, is our officer or our law as fully as if every man in the Union had voted for the one or the other. If any man can say that the officer not voted for is not his officer, the law not approved is not his law. 15 then the Republic, quoad hoc, is overthrown ; there is disintegration of society, dissolution of government. The ethics of Nihilism, the precedents of Guiteau and Booth, the evangel of -'the dynamite and the dagger," as remedy for iinde- sired laws and officers, for supposed personal wrongs or political evils, is the annihilation of law, the enthronement of anarchy, the subversion of the essential principles of free and popular institu- tions. The basal idea of our free representative institutions is the su- premacy of man, as man, over the accidents of birth, or race, or fortune. As the Sabbath was made for man, so are civil institu- tions, governments, rulers. We have no class distinctions, no titled nobility, no hereditary privileges, no political discriminations. Garfield and Johnson, in their careers, illustrate the possibilities of man in this country. Mankind have rights as well as duties. The arrogant and insolent aphorism to the contrary notwithstanding, the people with us have " something to do with the laws" beyond *' obeying them." The divine right of kings and of the " better born" is repudiated. We know no subjects. All are citizens, equal in the eye of the law. We accept no doctrine of official irresponsibility. We recognize no genealogical tables as proof of fitness, or as claim to public position, and especially no plea of genealogy as bar to punishment for violation of truth and justice and honor. Freedom is not dependent on, nor derived from, pre- scription, revolution or force. It rests upon absolute, immutable rights. Its title deeds come from Jehovah. " Justice and liberty have neither birth nor race, youth nor age." A "pedigree of freedom," as if tve had a right to freedom only because our ances- tors were free, is ignoble and ignominious. These ideas are of the essence of our institutions, and have had here a more man-em- bracing application than ever before. Another consequence of our union of States was reciprocal free trade. Although wages, products and climate are as various as those of widely remote naions, yet the products of each State find read}' ingress and egress throughout the whole territory, free from tax and inhibition. This unrestricted commerce, unarrested by border annoyances and inquisitorial examinations, has been a bond of interest and fraternity, constantly growing in strength, creating ever increasing benefits, and uniting more closely in fellowship 16 States and peoples. The local laws in Minnesota and Texas, Maine and California, and the agricultural, and iiuinufactunng, and mineral products, are more divxM\se in some respects than those of many foreign nations, and yet the advantages of this free com- merce are universally admitted, and exert a most salutary social, commercial and political influence. Separate State governments and absolute religious liberty are probably the most characteristic distinctions of American institu- tions. The claim over religious convictions and conduct had for centuries been asserted by governments of every name, and en- forced by pains and penalties, confiscations, imprisonment, torture, and death. The unwillingness to yield this tyrannical grasp, hurtful both to churches and governments, seems to Americans of the lat- ter part of the 19th century most strange, and to-day the United States is the only government in the world where soul-freedom is, or has ever been, guaranteed in its absoluteness, without tithes, without aid to any sect, without ecclesiastical discriminations. This is our undisputed and unshared contribution to the science of politics We had no precedent, no example, for this greatest and most glorious achievement in American history; and marvellous as has been the progress of religious toleration in England, France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, Austria and Italy, v^'e must still pray and labor that what has done so much for purity and spirituality of re- lio-ion here, and for intellectual and moral awakening and advance- ment, may become an integral part of every human government. In one hundred years, what progress ! Imagination and lan- o-uage fail to conceive and express our unrivalled growth From thnieen States, with a sparse population of 3,000,000 skirt- ing the Atlantic coast, and an area of 827,844 square miles, we have grown to thirty-eight States and nine territories, with a popu- lation of 50,000,000 and an area of 3,603,844 square miles. Our tonnage is over 4,000,000 tons. We have about 99,000 miles of railroad and over 700,000 miles of telegraphic wires. Receipts from customs in 1791, S4,339,473.( 9, and in 1880, from customs, $186,522,064 60, and from internal revenue, $124,609,373.92. In 1879, we had 207 normal schools, with 40,029 pupils; 1,236 schools for secondary instruction, with 108,734 pupils ; 207 schools for superior instruction of women, with 24,605 pupils ; 364 universi- ties and colleges, with 60,011 pupils, and eighty-three institutions for 17 deaf and dumb and blind. In States and Territories, in 1880, we had enrolled in public schools, 9,424,086 pupils; 366,144 in pri- vate schools, and a public school expenditure of $78,201,522. Free universal education is the aim and aspiration of every State and ever}' community ; and is the most forceful and fruitful idea of modern times. Independence, virtually recognized at Yorktown, introduced us into the family of nations, and started in this virgin world a new government. The growth in material prosperity, in creation and development of industries, the enlargement of territorial area, the free inter-State exchange of products, the work done for educa- tion, have been referred to. The abolition of primogeniture and of hereditary distinctions and privileges, voluntaryism in religion, equality of citizens in the eye of the law, liberalizing the law of nations, making the sea a highway and free to naviga- tion of all vessels, establishing the right of expatiation, opening dooi's for immigrants and citizenizing them, making America an asylum for the oppressed, are among the direct beneiits of our national existence, which tongue and pen have often described. The United States was among the first to declare the slave-trade piracy, and to use vigorous and effective measures for its suppres- sion. The abolition of negro slavery, which all thoughtful states- men regarded as a " problem full of terrible perplexity," is the stupendous social and political revolution of this century — out- weighing in character and consequences such crucial changes in histor}' as tlie consolidation of the German Empire, the unification of Italy, or the emancipation of serfs in Russia. However men may differ in opinion as to the methods of abolition and some mea- sures growing out of the act, I venture to affirm there is not a man nor a woman in this vast audience, gathered near the statue of Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate Christian soldier, and in the very shadow of the building where the Confederate Congress sat and deliberated, who does not rejoice that the negroes are free. I make the additional assertion that the South is sohd in cordially giving and guaranteeing to the black man, in unstinted measure, every personal and political right which Constitution and laws confer. I must be pardoned for making bold to affirm that there is not an honest Virginian who does not re-echo the doctrine of uniutimidated ballot, honest elections, and a fair count of all legal 18 votes. All assertions to the contrary are the spectres of excited imaginations, or the falsification of corrupt partisanship. The indirect influence of the Kepublic has been most potential. With a people, not strictly Anglo-Saxon, hut the fusion of Teu- tonic, Celtic, and other races, we have shown the stability and excellence of popular government ; have demonstrated, not by coercive intervention, nor aggressive propagandism, but by the omnipotent influence of successful example, that the people, under proper restrictions, can be safely trusted with political power; that standing armies and constructive treason are not necessary to hold the governed in subjection ; and thus noiselessly the leaven of freedom is permeating all civilized governments. Bastilles are demolished, public opinion is consulted and respected, civil and religious despotisms are toi)pling to the ground. His- tory assumes a new form and becomes, not simply a record of the acts of rulers and hierarchies, but an account of manners, amuse- ments, opinions and deeds of the people. Politics has become a new science more eidarged in its applications. Changes, almost amounting to revolutions, marking constitutional, social, intellec- tual and moral advances, go on unperceived at the moment and unrecorded, until a monarchy is transformed into a Kepublic, or a government of the House of Ccmimons; prerogatives, once the source of power, quietly fall into abeyance, and abuses, long re- garded as vested rights and irremediable, lapse into desuetude. Unquestionably, our Kepublic has ameliorated the condition of man ; has given a forward impulse to political' and human free- dom l)y an example of rational, conservative, regulated liberty ; has made reforms in other governments possible and ii(ivisal)le, and has left no loop to hang a just doubt upon as to the excellence of free government. It has been a political Pharos, and its health - giving, hope-impaV'ting light has illumined many habitations of cruelty. These evidences of prosperity and progress enhance our re- sponsibilities. With success come dangers. The perils that environ us are neither few nor feeble. Nations, like men, must have their conflicts, their sacriflces. We are to guard, not against aristocracy, nor Caisarism, nor standing armies; our foes are from within. Frequent appeals to the sources of power keep up a con- tinual agitation, and periodically we are disturbed, if not endan- 19 gered, bj the excitement, the passions, the loss of time, the cor- rupt use of money, the complicated and tyrannous party machin- ery, of a Presidential election. The immense patronage connected with the office, its influence in securing a renomination, the untold evils immediately and indirectly the progen^y of the pestiferous maxim announced in 1883, that " To the victors belong the spoils," make a series of perils demanding consummate and courageous statesmanship. The death of Harrison and the assas- sination of Garfield are traceable to the spoils system. The- entire sweep of the civil service on the accession of a new party or a chief magistrate is in painful and disastrous contrast to the prac- tice in England, where removals and appointments are limited to a few score of persons, although the ministers are " more sharply severed from one another in principle and practice than are our successive presidents." Keform in the civil service overshadows a hundred questions which inflame popular zeal and are made shibboleths of party loyalty. Such has been the power of caucus, the influence of self- ishnessi, cupidity and ambition, that the practice in the. better days has been reversed, and a system has fastened itself upon the govern- ment which no intelligent man would think, for a moment, of applying to his private affaii-s. Near 100.000 olHces are in the control of the President; many of these are of a subordinate or minor character. The duties are clerical or administrative, and, in the ordinary range of their performance, politics has no place. Fidelity, honesty, capacity, experience, should be the tests of appointment. The positions are trusts for the public good. Con- tinuance in office, promotion, increased pay, should be determined by capacity and fidelity. Under a vicious system, partisan zeal, cleverness in manipulating votes, servility to a chief, are the con- siderations that enter into appointments. Dominance of party is the end in view. The ins are in a struggle with the outs. This spoils system destroys manly independence, makes incumbents students of political weather-wisdom. Salaries are assessed for an electioneering fund, and the civil service is degraded into a means of corrupting the ballot-box. Inefficiency, neglect, wasteful ex- penditure, higher taxes, are the fruits. Politics is reduced from a noble science to a dirty scramble for " pubhc plunder." The best men stay away from party conventions ; cliques, factions, rings, 20 " bosses," with tools, henchmen and claqueurs, become the con- trolling forces in the administration of government. All admit and deplore the evil, and it will require Herculean efforts — the combination of the good and wise of all parties — to expel or cure it, and thus save free institutions. Suffrage, so universal, is an appalling peril. It lowers the quali- fications of officers, makes bribery, corruption, demagogism, pan- dering to the passions of the people, eas}', poisons government at its fountain head — the intelligent will of the people — and remits to ignorance and vice what should be the sacred trust of intelli- gent and upright patriotism. " We have no standard by which to measure the disaster that may be brought upon us by ignorance and vice in the citizens when joined to corruption and fraud in the suffrage." The illiteracy of the voters is such a menace to free institutions that the supreme national question of to-day is adequate provision in aid of, and in subordination to, State sys- tems for the education of the masses. The excess of democracy, or misapprehension of the character of our institutions and of the need of regulated liberty, some- times induces mobs to take into their own violent hands what belongs to organized authority. Subordination of law and order to popular passion, never justifiable except where a revolution would be, is the concentration of executive, judicial and legislative departments in the hands of a conscienceless, heady multitude. Better the assassin should escape unwhipt of justice, than have the overthrow of civil authority ; better the unpunished crime of one man than the audacious crimes of a thousand. There is a tendency to discriminate betwixt personal and political integrity. The distinction is untenable. A dishonest politician is a dishonest man. God's laws and man's laws should run in paral- lel lines. The ethical quality is never safely absent from public life. Conscience should rule in legislature and at ballot-box. Principles of truth, honor, justice and right are eternal. Violated faith obstructs industrial progress and the public weal, for " the perfidy of one man, or of a million of men, is as nothing com- pared with the perfidy of a nation." National shame will cling like the poisoned shirt of Nessus, and "the price of it will be to children an intolerable burden." A single act of deliberate dis- honor projects its baleful shadow into and over the distant future, 21 lowers the national conscience and the standard of right, and cor- rupts the body politic. The moral force of the public, and of in- dividual citizens, should be in alliance with civic conduct. We may outlive an incompetent officer, a bad law, an erroneous de- cision, an inexpedient policy ; we cannot escape the retribution which surely follows a violation of the unchangeable laws of God. To quote again from the martyred Garfield, whose words of wis- dom have special weight and significance : " The people of the United States can afibrd to make any sacrifice for their country, and the history of the last war is a proof of their willingness, but the humblest citizen cannot atford to do a mean or dishonorable thing to save even this glorious Kepublic." Despite these formidable dangers, the outlook is hopeful and inspiring. Whatever may have been the errors and failures, how- ever sincerely we may deplore the corruptions in public places, bribery in elections, purchases of legislator, the prevalence of in- temperance, the disregard of family authority, the rejection of the religion and the teachings of Christ, — the governments. Federal and State, have, in large measure, promoted prosperity and happi- ness, and there is a solid substratum of good sense, sound princi- ])le, true patriotism, loyalty to God, to which we can appeal to save from threatening evils. We must rise above the material and utilitarian to the realization of the ideal. The true strength of a nation is not in its industries, in agriculture, commerce, mining and manufacturing, for imperial possessions may drag us down and be factors of evil, if we reach not upwards, continuously and bravely, to the working out of a higher civilization and a nobler and purer government. Yorktown in itself is nothing; St. John's church-house is nothing; battle-fields and birth places are nothing, except as " historic events, heroic deeds, sublimed memories" have invested them with associations that kindle loftier aspirings, and stimulate to grander deeds. Places are immortalized and glorified by deeds of heroism, pregnant beliefs, truthful and seed-bearing utterances. Our government and institutions have had " a century of trial under pressure of exigencies caused by an expansion unex- ampled in point of rapidity and range." Their survival and suc- cess prove the " sagacity of the constructors, and the stubborn strength of the fabric." We are not concerned simply with the past. Our institutions may be the daughter of the past ; we may 22 jiistl}' glory in the achievements of men who seem to have been inspired for their beneficent and far-reaching work, but society is " the mother of the future." We inherit not that we may hoard or bury, but that we may increase and transmit forces that will find in improved and more beneficent institutions not perishable but permanent forms. Man is to create higher civilizations. There should be an ever-increasing progressiveness in mastering and utilizing the forces of nature, developing potentialities of the liu- man mind, conquering appetites and tendencies of evil, imposing restraints and discipline of virtue, solving the problems of human good. The nation lives for the race. When genius embodies itself in forms of government, codes of laws, it is for all peoples and all ages, A victory achieved over prejudice, or bigotry, or ignorance, or fanaticism, or falsehood, or wrong, is for humanity. America reversed the precedents of ages; unlocked the doors of tyranny, and turned loose the immured captives ; wrought out the great problem of free government, dimly seen and predicted by the prophets of liberty ; allied liberty and law, loyalty and order, government and people, activity of personal freedom and sub- jection to established authority ; and tlie conquest is for the op- pressed and the despotism-cursed of all nationalities and all times. Egypt may have her imperishable pyramids ; on Euphrates may be sad memorials of decayed splendor ; perished dynasties may come and go in the kaleidoscope of memory ; but the conquests of liberty, victories achieved for humanity, become ideas universalized, im- mortalized, that lift up those degraded by sin, and crushed by tyranny, and unify them into an exalted brotherhood. -€'£^ H ^»- fi >0VtXMW!.iW Mayor — W. Cv Carrington. City Attqrney^-A. M. Keiley. Treasurer — S. C. Greenhow. Clerk to Treasurer — D. A. CardwelL Auditor — ^James B. Royster. Clerk to Auditor — E. J. Warren. City Engineer — W. E. Cutshaw. Assistant City Engineers — S. E. Bates, Jackson Bolton. Clerks to City Engineer — S. B. Jacobs, Fran. T. Bates. Superintendent of Public Schools — James H. Peay. Police Justice — D. C. Richardson. Clerk to Police Justice — E. B. White. Superintendent of Gas Works — John H. Knowles. Foreman and Clerk of Gas Works — W. C. Adams. Bill Clerk— J.J. Royster. White, 24 THE CITY COUNCIL. Board of Aldermen — The Board of Aldermen is composed of eighteeh members, three from each ward in the city. Hon. John A. Meredith, of Madi- son Ward, is President. The following are the other members of the Board, which meets on the second Monday in each month, at 7 P. M. The list also shows when their terms e.xpire: C. R. Barksdale, of Clay, (188;>) ; L. L. Bass, of Monroe, (1884); R. G. Cabell, of Jefferson, (1882); L. D. Crenshaw, Jr., of Madison, (1884); Josiah Crump, of Jackson, (1884); J. C. Dickerson, of Mar- shall, (1882) ; O. Gasser, of Jackson, (1882) ; F. T. Glasgow, of Monroe, (1882) ; E. D. Kelly, of Clay, (1882); John Rankin, of Jackson, (1884); E. A. Saunders, of Marshall, (1884); William H.Scott, of Jefferson, (1882); James C. Smith, of Jefferson, (1884); Charles L. Todd, of Clay, (1884); Louis Wagner, of Madi- son, (1882); Johns. Wellford, of Monroe, (1884); William H. Williams, of Mar- shall, (1882); John A. Meredith, of Madison, (1884). Common Council. — The Common Council is composed of thirty members, five from each ward. Ma.xwell T. Clarke, of Madison Ward, is President, The Common Council meets on the first Monday in each month, at 5. P. M. The following are the other members of the body: T. P. Campbell, of Clay; W. A. O. Cole, of Jefferson ; John A. Curtis, of Marshall; Charles T. Davis, of Madison; T. Wiley Davis, of Marshall; L. S. Edwards, of Clay; T. H. Ellett, of Monroe; J. T. Ellyson, of Monroe; John W. Fergusson, of Jefferson; Richard Forrester, Sr., of Jackson; J. P'oster, of Jackson; James F. Gunn, of Marshall; W. S. Gunn, of Clay; N. D. Hargrove, of Madison; James Hayes, of Marshall; John M. Higgins, of Jefferson; George J. Hooper, Jr., of Clay; J.J. King, of Clay; H. W. Lubbock, of Jackson; O. F. Manson, of Monroe; W.J. McDowell, of Monroe; James E. Phillips, of Jefferson; Andrew Pizzini, Jr., of Madison; S. W. Robinson, of Jackson; M. L. Straus, of Monroe; Chas. F. Taylor, of Madison; W. H. Tinsley, of Jackson; George W. Warren, of Jefferson ; Arthur W. Weisiger, of Marshall ; .Maxwell T. Clarke, of Madison.