Glass. Book, :r 5' U-S PROCEEDINGS Senate and House of Representatives UPON THE RECEPTION AND ACCEPTANCE FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND Statues of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and of John Hanson, ERECTED IN STATUARY HALL OF THE CAPITOL. WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1903. .(D. s lLs~ I IUN J 1906 o.ota TABLE OF CONTENTS. Page. Proceedings in the Senate 5 Address of Mr. McComas, of Maryland 8 Address of Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts 24 Address of Mr. Dolliver, of Iowa . . . .< 30 Address of Mr. Depew, of New York 46 Address of Mr. Bacon, of Georgia 55 Address of Mr. Wellington, of Maryland 58 Proceedings in the House 75 Address of Mr. Pearre, of Maryland 78 Address of Mr. Dalzell, of Pennsylvania 96 Address of Mr. Schirni, of Maryland 105 3 ACCEPTANCE OF STATUES OF CHARLES CARROLL AND JOHN HANSON. PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. DECEMBER 20, 1902. Mr. McComas. I offer a resolution, and ask that the letter which I send to the desk, addressed to the Senate and House of Representatives by the governor of Maryland, may be read before the resolution is read. The President pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland asks that the letter of the governor of Maryland referred to by him may be read. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and the letter will be read. The Secretary read as follows: Executive Department, Annapolis, Md., December 15, 190?.. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, Washington, D. C. Gentlemen: I have the honor to inform yon that, in acceptance of the invitation contained in section 1S14 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, the general assembly of Maryland, by chapter 311 of the acts of 1S98, made an appropriation to procure statues of Charxes Carroee of Carroleton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and John Hanson, President of the Continental Congress of 1781 and 1782, to be placed in Statuary Hall, in the Capitol, at Washington, D. C. By authority of the act of the general assembly of Maryland, the gov- ernor appointed John Lee Carroll, Douglas H. Thomas, Thomas J. Shryock, Fabian Franklin, and Richard K. Cross to constitute a commission to procure and have the statues erected. 5 6 Acceptance of Statues of I am informed by the commissioners that the statues were made by Mr. Richard E. Brooks, of Boston; that they are completed and have been placed in position, and are now ready to be presented to Congress. As governor of the State of Maryland, therefore, I have the honor to present to the Government of the United States the statues of the dis- tinguished statesmen named. Very respectfully, John Walter Smith, Governor of Maryland. The President pro tempore. The resolution submitted by the Senator from Maryland will now be read. The Secretary read the resolution, as follows: Resolved, That the exercises appropriate to the reception and accept- ance from the State of Maryland of the statues of Chari.ES Carrou OE Carroixton and of John Hanson, erected in Statuary Hall in the Cap- itol, be made the special order for Saturday, January 31, 1903, after the conclusion of the morning business. Mr. McComas. I ask unanimous consent for the present consideration of the resolution. There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to the con- sideration of the resolution. Mr. Allison. I suggest to the Senator from Maryland that he modify the resolution so as to make the time 2 o'clock. Mr. McComas. I will accept the suggestion of the Senator from Iowa to make the time 2 o'clock p. m. on Saturday, January 31, 1903. The President pro tempore. The resolution will be so modified. The question is on the adoption of the resolution as modified. The resolution as modified was agreed to. JANUARY 31, 1903- ACCEPTANCE OF STATUES OF CHARLES CARROLL AND JOHN HANSON. Mr. McComas. Mr. President, I present the following con- current resolution. The Presiding Officer. The concurrent resolution will be read. Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 7 The Secretary read the concurrent resolution, as follows: Resolved by the Senate {the House of Representatives concurring), That the thanks of Congress be presented to the State of Maryland for provid- ing the bronze statues of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John Hanson, citizens of Maryland, illustrious for their historic renown and distinguished civic services. Resolved, That the statues be accepted and placed in the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol, and that a copy of these resolutions duly authenticated be transmitted to the governor of the State of Maryland. Mr. McComas. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the gentlemen who constitute the Maryland statuary commis- sion for the presentation of the statutes of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John Hanson be admitted to the floor, and I ask that the descendants of the distinguished men who are thus honored and the ladies and others of their party may have the privilege of occupying during these exercises the gallery reserved for the families of Senators. The Presiding Officer. The Senator from Maryland asks unanimous consent that the commission of the State of Mary- land who have under charge the statues be admitted to the floor of the Senate, and that the ladies and gentlemen accom- panying them be admitted to the reserved gallery of the Senate. Is there objection to the request of the Senator from Maryland? The Chair hears none, and the request is granted. Acceptance of Statues of ADDRESS OF MR.. MCCOMAS, OF MARYLAND, Mr. President: The State of Maryland has placed in the National Statuary Hall the bronze statues of Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John Hanson, and the purpose of the resolutions that I have just offered is that now they be pre- sented to Congress for acceptance. The State statuary com- mission, who appreciate the courtesy of the Senate on this occasion, have well performed their office, for the works of the artist are worthy of their subjects and of a place in yonder hall. Maryland has nearly three centuries of history wherefrom to choose two citizens illustrious in her annals and worthy of this national commemoration. My State did not accord this high honor to the founder, George Calvert, nor to Caecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, the father of the province; nor to the gallant leaders of the Maryland Line, to Howard, Small- wood, Williams, or De Kalb, commanders of that body of sol- diers which early won the confidence of Washington, which, at Brooklyn Heights, by its discipline and bravery, saved our army when surrounded, which maintained this honorable dis- tinction for steadiness and gallantry until in the last pitched battle of the Revolution, at Eutaw Springs, that same Mary- land Line drove the flower of the English infantry at the point of the bayonet; nor to her orators or- jurists or lawyers who, living before Luther Martin and William Pinkney or in their day or after them, emulated their fame and glory. From among all her renowned sons Maryland chose Charles Carroll of Carrollton and John Hanson as most worthy of this national commemoration. And with reason has my State presented the statues of these illustrious men to join the company of the great and good already gathered together in the old Hall of Representatives. The story of the Revolution grows in dramatic interest as the long perspective grows. As the Revolution recedes, each Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 9 succeeding generation finds augmented fascination in the great story, and draws increasing patriotism from this inspiring panorama of our history and this immense event in the history of the English-speaking people. The most stupid King England ever had was then on the throne. He never long endured a prime minister if his talent rose above that of a gentleman usher. The American colonists were the least governed and the freest of English subjects. They were prosperous. They loved the Kingdom and the King. They loved the English name and tradition, the literature, the architecture and arts of England, its historic places, its very soil, for England was to them the old home. They were freemen and mostly free- holders, 'and they loved liberty. The history of English liberty was the history of a struggle for the rights of the individual citizen as respects person, property, and opinion, so that he shall have nothing to fear from the tyranny of an executive or of a Parliament; a struggle which began with Magna Charta and lasted down to the Bill of Rights and to the Declaration of Independence. The indissoluble connection between taxation and represen- tation was the basis of the English conception of freedom. That no man should be taxed without his own consent was the principle which was the root of the American Revolution. The glorious wars of the elder Pitt had raised from the dust the standard of Great Britain, had restored her prestige and power, but had also enormously increased her debt. The colonists, under the guidance of the elder Pitt, had cheerfully given men and money. They had followed Braddock to defeat, and Howe and Amherst and Wolfe to victory. As compatriots of English veterans they had helped drive the French from the Great Lakes and from the valley of the Ohio, joined in the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, the siege of Quebec, and the conquest of Canada. The elder Pitt' would not have appealed in vain to the Colonies, who loved him, to tax themselves to help pay their io Acceptance of Statues of share of debt for these wars. But the great minister had given place to a pliant tool of a dull king. As the burden had been partly incurred in the defense of the Colonies, George Granville resolved that the Colonies should bear their share of it. They had no representation in Parlia- ment and therefore the Colonies replied that taxation and representation went hand in hand. Blunder followed blunder until loyalty to King and Parliament died out in the Colonies. The province of Maryland had little cause for a change of government. The proprietary government was mild, and reposed on popular affection. The colonists were a homoge- neous people, prosperous and contented, although the bigotry of the age had imposed disabilities on Catholics in the only province whose Catholic founders had dedicated it to civil and religious liberty and to the broadest toleration. The Colonial governor, Robert Eden, was beloved and respected. The colony was rapidly growing. Maryland was the fourth colony in population and importance when she joined in the Revolution from love of liberty, and from hon- orable sympathy with the general welfare of her sister colonies. On this broad and generous ground she gave her adhesion to the Revolution, and authorized her delegates in the Continental Congress to concur in the Declaration of Independence. It is because of their part in the great drama of the Revo- lution, their unfailing devotion to the cause of liberty, their great power and influence at critical -periods of the struggle with Great Britain, their characters and lives * that Mary- land has selected John Hanson and Charles Carroix of Carrolltou, to dwell in enduring bronze in yonder American pantheon. Most of the thirteen original States have contributed statues to our National Gallery. It is unfortunate that so few of the illustrious men of the Revolution have been sent to join the solemn circle there. It is to be regretted that hitherto only three of the signers of the great Declaration face each other there. Charles Carroll and Jolm Hanson. n American public life in that time of trial and danger was adorned by many striking figures. Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Marshall of that generation belong to the history of the world. Many of their associates will forever live in American history. They stand in the fore- front of the nation's life. Therefore I rejoice that Maryland now brings to the old Hall of Representatives for the accept- ance of Congress two men of the Revolution, one of them the President of a Congress of the Revolution, the other the last of the survivors of the signers of the Declaration of Inde- pendence, that great act with which our nation's history begins. JOHN HANSON. John Hanson was born in 17 15 in Charles County, Md., and lived there until in 1773 he removed to Frederick County, then rapidly growing. He had nine times represented Charles County in the provincial assembly. In trying times John Hanson was by nature a leader. The ' ' Boston port bill ' ' roused the peaceful province to make common cause with Massachusetts. We find Hanson a delegate from Frederick to a congress at Annapolis, aUd as chairman of the committee of observation of his county sending money to John Adams for the poor of Boston, later helping to raise two companies of riflemen in Frederick. Walking all the way, in twenty-two days Capt. Michael Cresap and Capt. Thomas Price marched their Frederick riflemen into Cambridge. The Frederick com- panies were the first Southern troops to join Washington. At Annapolis in 1775 Hanson fearlessly joined in the over- throw of the proprietary government and in placing supreme control in the provincial convention. The cautious conven- tion, hoping for reunion with Britain, had precluded our dele- gates in Congress from declaring for independence of the colonies. Hanson and the Frederick County patriots now assembled and resolved ' ' That what may be recommended by a majority of the Congress equally delegated by the people of the United Colonies we will at the hazard of our lives 12 Acceptance of Statues of and fortunes support and maintain, and that every resolution of the convention tending to separate this province from a majority of the colonies without the consent of the people is destructive to our internal safety." Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll had just returned from their mission to Canada, and had taken their seats in the new convention. Carroll was mainly instrumental in causing the convention to recall its former instructions and empowering the Maryland delegates in Congress to concur ' ' in declaring the United Colonies free and independent States." John Hanson, with unflagging spirit, in the legislature and in the Continental Congress supported the great struggle for independence. During his three successive terms in the Continental Con- gress John Hanson was engaged in battling for another great cause, whose successful issue changed the whole course of our national life. It is recorded in the journals of Congress that "on March i, 1781, John Hanson and Daniel Carroll did ~r- sign and ratify the Articles of Confederation of the United States. ' ' This action was the crowning historic service in Hanson's career. The far-reaching consequences of the struggle which ended when Hanson signed the Articles of Confederation are now better understood. We all recall that in November, 1777, Congress submitted the Articles of Confederation to the State legislatures for ratification. Within fifteen months they were ratified by all the States except Maryland. Our State refused ratification until those States claiming the northwestern back lands, and especially Virginia, should surrender their claims of western territory to the confederation. This action of Mary- land led directly to the formation of the Federal Union. In October, 1777, when the Articles of Confederation were about to be presented by Congress to the States for ratification, Maryland alone ,voted that Congress shall have the sole right Charles Carroll and -John Hanson. 13 and power to determine the western boundary of such States as claim to the Mississippi and lay out the land beyond this boundary into separate and independent States from time to time, as the number and circumstances of the people may require. This would compel Virginia, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts to surrender their claims to the vast inte- rior and thus create a domain to be owned by the Confeder- acy until new States grew up and should be admitted into it. Maryland alone voted for this bold centralization. The States protested against the attitude of Maryland. Here and there leading men were heard to threaten to divide the little State on the Chesapeake among her neighbors and then declare the confederation complete. All other States had ratified the Articles when, in May, 1779, Maryland again communicated to the Congress her unalterable resolve not to concur until she received definite assurances that the Northwest Territory should become the common property of the United States, "subject to be par- celed out by Congress into free, convenient, and independent governments." New York first yielded. Daniel Carroll and John Hanson, from Maryland, persistently pressed this demand of their State, and in September, 1780, Congress, yielding, recommended all States claiming Western lands to cede them to the Confederation. A month later Congress advanced further, and adopted the Maryland plan, declaring that from the ceded lands in due season sovereign States, like the thirteen, should be admitted into the Union. Virginia and Connecticut yielded their claims and long after Massachusetts abandoned her shadow}* claims to the Western lands. The area of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio thus became the common property of the Confedera- tion. And so Hanson and' Daniel Carroll, after this triumph had been secured largely by their efforts, signed the Articles of Confederation. It was Maryland that during the period of Hason's service led the way to acquire a national domain, and 14 Acceptance of Statues of thus laid broad and deep the foundation of our Federal Union. For his share in this pregnant service John Hanson's name will be associated forever with laying the corner stone of ■ our great nation. Out of this first ordinance grew the Ordinance of 1784, and later the great Ordinance of 1787, and later the Constitution and the United States of America. For this act alone John Hanson is worthy of his place in the goodly com- pany gathered in the old Hall of Representatives. The con- federation of the States was now complete, and on November 5, 1 78 1, John Hanson was elected the first president of the Congress of the Confederation. This elevation to the Presidency was a signal compliment and a great honor to Maryland. It has a much larger mean- ing as we look back now over the stately procession of the great Commonwealths successively entering the Union. The persistent refusal of Maryland to consent to the Confederation until she won from her reluctant associated States consent that the western territory should be dedicated to the Union, made smooth the pathway for Vermont, Kentucky, and Maine to enter the Union as independent States, carved out of the mag- nificent domain Maryland directly secured to the Union, the great Commonwealths of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and determined for all coming time that the after acquired territory of the United States should in due time by Congress be fashioned and admitted as States, aug- menting the power of the Republic and the grandeur of the American Union. By this election to the Presidency of Congress John Hanson became in a political sense the foremost person in the United States, and represented its dignity. His title was "President of the United States in Congress assembled." After the decisive victory at Yorktown President Hanson had the felicity to welcome General Washington and present him to Congress, then sitting in Philadelphia. On November 4, 1782, President Hanson's term expired. Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 15 The war was ended, the last British soldier was soon to sail away from New York. Peace was in sight. At 68 years of age Hanson was worn out in the public service. His health was broken. He refused to accept further public service. He died November 22, 1783, in the State he loved, and his State, one hundred and twenty j^ears after his death, bestows upon his name the highest honor whereby an American State can commemorate an illustrious citizen. CHARLES CARROLL OF CARROLLTON. Charles Carroll of Carrollton was born at Annapolis, September 19, 1737. His grandfather, Charles Carroll, the attorney-general of the province, came over to Maryland in 1688. His father, Charles Carroll, was one of the richest men of his day and country. It was the custom of wealthy colo- nists to send their sons over the sea for education and travel. So young Carroll, sent as a boy of eleven years to the Jesuit College at St. Omers, and later to colleges at Rheims and Paris, was a student at the Temple in London at twenty. Eight years of London life to an accomplished young colonist, who at the ' ' Crown and Anchor ' ' more than once met Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds, now and then dined with Burke, heard Charles Fox expatiate upon liberty, or time and again listened to the eloquence and saw r Parliament bow before the greatness of the elder Pitt, inspired young Carroll with the ideals of the noblest Englishmen. He came home to Annapolis at twenty- eight years of age. The news of the stamp act of 1765 soon stirred with unwonted anger against their King the pleasure- loving colonists of the little capital and of the province. Young Carroll had been strongly moved by the words of Pitt, the first English orator whose words were a power over Parliament, over the nation, and over the colonies. Though passionate, Pitt's eloquence was the eloquence of a statesman. Perchance the law student at the Temple had sat in the gallery and heard Pitt's trumpet tongue declare "Taxation is no part 1 6 Acceptance of Statues of of the governing or legislative power. The taxes are a volun- tary gift and grant of the Commons alone. In legislation the three estates of the realm are alike concerned; but the concur- rence of the peers and Crown is only necessary to clothe it with the form of law. The gift and grant is of the Commons alone." When the wave of good feeling after the repeal of the stamp act had been rudely checked by Charles Townshend's three- pence tax on tea, young Carroll must have rejoiced that Pitt had said: " In my opinion this Kingdom has no right to lay a tax on the colonies. America is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted." Already one of the wealthiest of the colonists, Carroll's religion debarred him froin holding office. The Sons of Liberty were organized. Carroll joined them. He wore homespun. He counseled resistance to tyranny, and in a discussion with Daniel Dulaney, the ablest lawyer in the colony, Carroll, in a series of letters signed " First Citizen," won a signal victory over his brilliant adversary and a high place in public confi- dence, ranking as a popular leader alongside Chase, Paca, and Stone. Annapolis, at the mouth of the beautiful Severn, under sunny skies in a mild climate, had grown to be one of the centers of social life and refinement on the continent. Ships from all lands came to its harbor and brought to the young city the chief trade of the Province. Theaters, race courses, balls, and social assemblies spread the fame of the enjoyable life at the Maryland capital. The wealthy planters wintered there in capacious mansions. The officials of the province, with the popular Governor Eden at their head, extended their hospitality to make life joyous. The provincial assembly, the assize, and higher courts added features to the life. From other colonies visitors came and lin- gered, and among them now and then was Col. George Wash- ington. Daniel Dulaney, unrivaled lawyer and scholar, lived here. William Pinkney, the foremost orator and lawver of his Charles Carroll and John Hanson, 17 time and country, was here growing to manhood. Charles Wilson Peale, born here, had returned from England to this wealthy capital of a fruitful land to paint the portraits of Maryland's gentry and the worthies of the Revolution. The wide circles, the narrow streets, with enduring brick mansions of the time of the Georges, still leave Annapolis the most quaint and interesting capital in our country, as it is among the most beautiful. May these historic landmarks survive the perils of its present rapid growth. On October 19, 1774, when the people of the neighboring counties thronged in Annapolis and denounced ' ' the Boston port bill," the brig Peggy Stewart, from London, came into port with 2,000 pounds of tea. In June the provincial assem- bly had forbidden all importations of "that detestable weed, tea." The irritated populace threatened violence to Anthony Stewart, the owner; Williams, the consignee, and the ship itself. Stewart and Williams confessed to the people's com- mittee " that the> T had been guilty of a daring insult, an act of the most pernicious tendency, to the leaders of America," and offered to burn the tea. When they sought aid from Charles Carroll of Carrollton he promptly advised that Stewart must set fire to both ship and tea. So Stewart reluctantly went on board and set fire to his ship, and with her sails set and colors flying, in the presence of the patriotic multitude, the Peggy Stewart burned to the water's edge. In Maryland the 19th of October is a holiday to commemorate the day when pacific Maryland placed herself in line with stub- born Boston and Massachusetts Bay. In December news of the burning of the Peggy Stewart reached London, to the great alarm of the merchants of Threadneedle street, and the House of Commons began to take America more seriously. In January, 1775, Carroll became a member of the first committee of observation at Annapolis, and was elected a delegate to represent Anne Arundel County in the provin- cial convention, which soon named him upon the committee of safety. S. Doc. 13 2 iS Acceptance of Statues of The provincial convention, to Carroll's disgust, disavowed any design of colonial independence. Unhappily for the province, Carroll's character, influence, and patriotic labors had attracted attention in Congress. Early in 1776 Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin. Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll as commissioners to Canada to secure her cooperation with the United Provinces against Great Britain. This plan, once hopeful, had become hopeless by the defeat and death of Montgomery, by the levying of contributions to feed our starv- ing army, by the manifest incapacity of our commanders, and the inferiority of our forces. The Canadians were friendly, then suspicious, then irritated, then hostile. The population, nearly all Catholic, were turned against us by their priests. Charles Carroll and Rev. John Carroll in vain tried to secure the aid of their coreligionists. Carroll's journal, in his excellent English, vividly tells this story of their inevitable failure. Canada was destined to remain a British dominion until a day in the distant future. In Carroll's absence, on May S, 1776, the Maryland Con- vention had again instructed the Man-land delegates in Con- gress not to agree to a final separation from Great Britain. Soon afterwards Hanson and the patriots of Frederick had sounded a trumpet call for complete independence. Carroll now hastened to Annapolis and resumed his seat to urge the repeal of these instructions. Xo time was to be lost. This was a crisis in the Revolution. On June 28, 1776. the new instructions advocated by Carroll were given. On July 2. 1776. our Mandand delegates found themselves authorized to vote for independence. The zeal and ability of Carroll in winning his State to take this action he had so early and so steadily urged, led to his immediate appointment as a Delegate from Maryland to the Continental Congress. On July 4. 1776, Charles Carroll of Carrollton was appointed, along with Matthew Tilghman, Thomas Johnson. William Paca, Samuel Chase, and Thomas Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 19 Stone, Delegates to that famous Congress. Carroll hastened to Philadelphia in time to vote on July 19 to engross this great paper. On August 2, Chase, Paca, Stone, and Carroll affixed their signatures to the Declaration of Independence. Charles Carroll of Carrollton with alacrity risked his life and his great fortune by signing this charter of the new- Republic, ' ' this document unparalleled in the annals of man- kind." The board of war was Adams, Sherman, Harrison, Wilson, and Rutledge, and to those Carroll was soon added. Chairman John Adams tells us that on July 18 Carroll was so chosen, and that he was ' ' an excellent member, whose edu- cation, manners, and application to business and to study did honor to his fortune, the first in America." In August Carroll returned to a seat in the Maryland con- vention, which adopted the bill of rights and constitution which created Maryland a sovereign State. It was Carroll who suggested the mode of choosing the State senate of Maryland, which suggested, as Madison tells us, to the framers of the Federal Constitution the mode of choosing the Senators of this Senate, the method by which we now hold our seats here. After the fashion of that day, Carroll went to and from the State assembly and the Continental Congress. He belonged to both. To his lasting honor, Carroll unwaveringly supported on the board of war and in Congress the great commander, and helped defeat the Conway cabal, designed to put Gates in Washington's place. We find Carroll in 177S with the Maryland delegates urging the cession of the public lands to the Confederation, and steadily struggling to secure this sure foundation for the coming Federal Union, until he resigned from Congress at the close of 1778. The French treaty gave Carroll confidence in our ultimate success in the war, and he believed his sen-ices in the State senate of Maryland would be his most effective way to help the 20 Acceptance of Statues of army in the field. There he advocated generous support of Washington, and voted troops and financial aid to the war. He steadily opposed confiscation of the property of British subjects, and also all the wild currency schemes to which our countrymen were then prone to turn for relief. He firmly urged the Maryland policy of dedication of the Western terri- tory to the Confederation. He was in the Maryland senate leading the fight to secure Maryland's ratification of the Constitution of 1789. Long before his fellows, Carroll had advocated independence, and in advance of his associates he advocated a Federal Union. He had declined election to the Congress of the Confederation because he foresaw its powerlessness. Washington and Gates, commissioners from Virginia, met Carroll, Stone, and Samuel Hughes, commissioners from Maryland, to arrange to open and extend the navigation of the Potomac. They met December 22, 1784, at Annapolis, and later at Mount Vernon. The Maryland report asked that Pennsylvania and Delaware should be included, because the scheme of navigation included a canal between Delaware River and the Chesapeake. The outcome was the Annapolis con- vention of 1786, which led to the Federal Convention which framed our Constitution. Thus the signer of the Declaration had a part in the begin- ning of the Constitution. Under the new Constitution, Carroll was elected to the First Congress as a Senator from Maryland. His colleague was John Henry. In April, 1789, he appeared in the Senate. Congress had assembled in the old city hall of New Vork. Carroll, the friend of Washington, Hamilton, and Franklin, was a determined Federalist. He drew a two years' term in the Senate. He reported the now famous judiciary act. He declared for a standing arm}'. He successfully labored to establish this Federal District, in whose Capitol his statue will hereafter stand. He reported the assumption bill which but- tressed the Federal Union. He was reelected to the Senate in Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 21 1791, but resigned that he might remain in the Maryland sen- ate, a State statute now forbidding service in both bodies at the same time. In 1801 the party of Jefferson triumphed, and thereby, at sixty-three years of age, ended the public career of Charles Carroll the Federalist. During thirty years of public life he had left his impress upon the times. At his beautiful home, Doughoregan Manor, or at his town house in Baltimore, he spent the remaining thirty-three years of his long life, devoted to his large estate, to his home and kindred, to the Bible, to the classics, and to polite learning, always mindful of his religion and his country. On July 4, 1822, Carroll helped lay the corner stone of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which he helped promote. He who, with Washington, forty years before sought by the Potomac navi- gation scheme to unite the Ohio with the sea, still a farseeing Federalist statesman at eighty- five years of age foresaw that the American Union could not have endured until our day without the railroads. For political and social purposes rail- roads and steamships, telegraphs and telephones, have made our vast country as compact and intimate as was New England a century ago. At ninety years of age Carroll was erect and vigorous, with the vivacity and grace of youth. In person he was small and slight. His face was strong, his eye piercing, his manners easy and winning. About this time he heard the impressive tidings of the death of Adams and Jefferson on the 4th of July, 1826. To him came the address of Daniel Webster upon Adams and Jefferson and that stately apostrophe to the last of the signers: / ' ' Of the illustrious signers of the Declaration of Independence there now remains only one, Charles Carroll. He seems an aged oak, standing alone on the plain, which time has spared a little longer after all of its contemporaries have been leveled with the dust. Venerable object! We delight to gather around its trunk while yet it stands, and to dwell beneath its shadow. Sole survivor of an assembly of as great men as the world has 22 Acceptance of Statues of witnessed, in a transaction one of the most important that history records, what thoughts, what interesting reflections, must fill his elevated and devout soul! If he dwell on the past, how touching its recollections; if he survey the present, how happy, how joyous, how full of the fruition of that hope which his ardent patriotism indulged; if he glance at the future, how does the prospect of his country's advancement almost bewilder his weakened conception! Fortunate distinguished patriot! Interesting relic of the past! Let him know that while we honor the dead we do not forget the living; and that there is not a heart here which does not fervently pray that Heaven may keep him yet back from the society of his companions." That solemn prayer was granted. Charles Carroll of Carrolltou lived until his ninety-sixth year, and on Novem- ber 14, 1S32, died with the calmness of a philosopher and with the faith of a holy man of God. The work of Carroll and Hanson and their compatriots of the Revolution gave to the world the first true Federal State; and they built it to endure the storms and stress of civil war. They so cemented it that all fears of its disruption have dis- appeared forever. It is the great Republic of all history. In it the law is supreme. No man is so high as to be above the law. In the very fiber of the people is inbred a regard for law, which is the security of our rights and the basis of our pros- perous and happy civil government. Yet under it the people shape their own destiny and unhindered walk in their own paths. \ \ Looking back over the one hundred and twenty-seven years of our existence as a nation, one truth is luminous. The world would not if it could erase the great Republic from the map of the globe. The future of civilization rests with the Anglo-Saxon race. Not the British Empire but the American Republic will lead that race onward to that future. Traditional, moral, political, and intellectual ties unite in a sense all who speak the English Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 23 language, to-day the leading language of the world. Mr. Bryce justly boasts that "England has sent her language, her com- merce, her laws, and institutions forth from herself over an even wider and more populous area than that whose races were molded into new forms by the laws and institutions of Rome." The marvelous achievements of the English-speaking people, reaching forth from their little island world, are sure to be surpassed by several hundred millions of English-speaking people of fifty powerful States in an invincible Republic whose home is the vast center of a continent washed by both oceans. Lord Rosebery, the foremost statesman and orator of the British Empire in our day, has outlined in historic vision what would have been the future of the English-speaking people had George III listened to reason and had the thirteen colonies sent representatives to the Imperial Parliament. He predicted that at last when the Americans became the majority, the seat of empire would have been moved across the Atlantic, and Britain would have become the historic shrine and European outpost of the world empire, with the* English-speaking Federal Parlia- ment sitting in Columbia territory somewhere in the Mississippi Basin. Simpler and grander far is the historic reality. The great Republic has been worthy of its heritage. It has lifted up humanity and liberty. It has advanced civilization. It leads the commerce of the world. It is the richest nation on the globe. It is now the world's center of finance. It is invincible in war, if war approach its shores. It is fast reaching out to control the seas. Its people are happy, free, homogeneous — the most intelligent, and soon to be the most numerous. It is the greatest self-governing nation and the greatest world power. Its foreign policy is a synonym for justice. Its creed is peace. The future of the English-speaking peoples depends upon our Republic, and that future, in the vigorous embrace of the younger world, is boundless. 24 Acceptance of Statues of Address of Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts. Mr. President: Every man who has visited a great gallery will remember some picture that caught his attention and dwells in his memory because of some single stroke or feature. It will seem of little importance when he comes to tell of it. But that is what caught his eye and led him to pause before it when a hundred more celebrated works of more famous painters were neglected or forgotten. It abides with him for the rest of his life. If it be a landscape, it may be some single rock or tree. If it be a Dutch interior, it may be only a ray of light through a window. If it be a portrait, it is but a glance of the eye, or a curl of the lip, or the pose of the head. But it penetrates the soul, and it abides. Most of our great popular reputations are made in that way. There are a few men like Washington, or like Marshall, or like Webster, or like Lincoln, whose service is so great that their countrymen know every detail of it by heart. But, in general, our great men are remembered not because of sober and faithful labor, not because of long service in legislation, or in the Executive chair, or even in war. Something has found its way to the people's heart and keeps the name fresh. Old John Adams, though he was President of the United States, is remembered by nine men out of ten for the immortal argument for the Declaration of Independence, ascribed to him by Webster; for the fact that he was our first representative to Great Britain, and for his sublime death at the height of human fame, with the undying words " Independence forever" on his dying lips. As was said of Lord Nelson, by his biographer, "If the chariot and the horses of fire had been vouchsafed for his translation he could scarcely have departed in a brighter blaze of glory." John Hancock was a great power in the time of the Revolu- tion, and before. But his countrymen in general only know that he signed his name to the Declaration in letters visible Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 25 across the broad Atlantic, and that he told the patriots to burn Boston, though it contained his whole fortune, if it were need- ful for the cause of liberty; that he was President of the Continental Congress, and that he was excepted, with Sam Adams, in the royal proclamation of amnesty, as a rebel whose offenses were too flagitious for pardon. Ask even the men of his own State of Massachusetts, and of his own town of Boston, what they know of Sam Adams. They will tell you that they know that he was a man who was excepted with Hancock from the royal pardon; that he was the man who demanded of Hutchinson the removal of the regi- ments from Boston, and that when Hutchinson told him he would remove one, answered, "If you have power to remove one you have power to remove both," and that when he told the story afterwards he said, "It was then that I observed his knees tremble, and I enjoyed the sight." There is an admirable memoir of Charles Carroll, which shows a life extending over almost a century. A large part of it is crowded with honorable public service of the first quality. It shows him fully entitled to rank not only as a foremost statesman of a foremost State, but among the great men of his time, from whatever State they may have come. There has been no time since the Revolution ended when the name of Charles Carroll of Carrollton was not a familiar house- hold word in every home through the length and breadth of the country. Yet if you had asked, not merely common men, but well- informed men, students of history or graduates of the college or university, men themselves taking an important part in public affairs,' they could tell you only that Charles Carroll was a Catholic; that he lived to survive all his companions who signed the Declaration; and that when he signed his name he took care that there should be no doubt of his identity, if the Revolutionary war were a failure and it were in the power of the Royal Government to inflict the death penalty for treason. 26 Acceptance of Statues of Charles Carroll died at 95, in the year 1832. He sur- vived Jefferson and John Adams over six years. Jefferson and John Adams and Carroll had been the only survivors of the signers of the Declaration for eleven years before. It seemed that as each of that immortal company died the affection his countrymen had felt for him was transferred to the survivors. I suppose, in spite of the bitter political antagonism of that day, in which Jefferson and Adams not only shared, but in which they were the great leaders of the opposite sides, that there were never figures in the history of any people dearer to the popular heart than Thomas Jefferson, as he comes down in history with the Declaration of Independence in one hand and the title deed of Louisiana in the other, and brave and honest old John Adams, who had argued, with a power given to no other man, the side of the country in the great debate of liberty. When Adams and Jefferson died it seemed that the whole of this sentiment gathered and centered upon Carroll. I can remember when he died, though then but a child of 6 years. The schoolboy used" to be asked the question in the school to name the only man living of that illustrious band. And I well remember when the solemn tidings went through the country that Charles Carroll was gone. Before he died men used to make pilgrimages to his dwelling as to a shrine. My honored and accomplished friend Mr. Winthrop has left on record a graphic account of such a visit. I can not 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 arid cov- ered with a shawl, and was not even aware of his presence, so shrunk and shriveled 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 midday nap, he rose and greeted me with a courtesy and grace which I shall 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 before him; and save, too, the exceeding satisfac- tion for myself of having seen and pressed the hand of the last surviving signer of the Declaration. Charles Carroll and John Ha?iso?i, 27 Webster described him as ' ' an aged oak standing alone on the plain, which time has spared a little longer after all its contemporaries have been leveled with the dust." > He says that his countrymen delight to gather around its trunk while it yet stands, and to dwell beneath its shadow. I will not undertake to do what my honorable friend from Maryland has done so much better— draw the lesson of patriot- ism which is taught us by the life of Charles Carroll. I have no fear that the great Declaration will ever lose its primacy among the political State papers which have been produced since the beginning of time. To find its superior or its equal we must search the inspired pages of our venerable Scriptures. There have been times, and there will be again, when the great truths on which our fathers planted the Republic, as upon a corner stone, will be denied or scorned or scoffed at by men or parties who, in some fancied stress or political necessity, will endeavor to escape their obligations. That is true, unhappily, of the Ten Commandments and of the Sermon on the Mount. It is true of every moral and legal obligation, whether of divine or human sanction. The gen- eration and the party and the individual who have disobeved these high commands perish and are forgotten, while the eternal law of rectitude abides forever. The commanding authority of our great Declaration and the pure fame of the men who framed it and who signed it and who pledged to it their life, fortune, and sacred honor will remain so long as the Republic shall endure. Among them there is no purer and there are few more conspicuous reputations than that of Charles Carroll. But I should like to speak for a moment of one lesson which has been often forgotten, which the life of Charles Carroll teaches alone among his illustrious companions. Charles Carroll was a devoted Catholic. He belonged to that church which preserved for mankind religion, learning, literature, and law through the gloomy centuries known as the Dark Ages. Yet it is the only denomination of Christians 28 Acceptance of Statues of against which anything of theological bitterness or bigotry seems to have survived amid the liberality of our enlight- ened day* Every few years we hear of secret societies, and even politi- cal parties, organized with the sole view of excluding the members of a single Christian church from their equal privi- leges as American citizens. Yet certainly the men of the Catholic faith have never been behind their countrymen, either as patriot citizens or as patriot soldiers. This spirit of bigotry would have denied the ordinary rights of Americans not only to Charles Carroll and his illustrious cousins, the Arch- bishop, to Daniel Carroll and Thomas Fitzsimmons, who were among the framers of the Constitution, but to Montgomery and Phil. Sheridan. The Pilgrim and the Puritan of Massachusetts encountered exile and the horrors of the winter voyage and the wilderness and the wild beast and the savage for civil and religious free- dom. But even they saw "as through a glass, darkly." They fell short of that conception of freedom which prevails now. Their treatment of the Quakers and the Baptists will not bear the light to-day. Roger Williams, in his turn, made another forward step and founded his State on the principle of com- plete tolerance of all Christians. But he, in his turn, excluded all men whom he did not deem to be Christians from a share in the government of his Commonwealth . The Catholic in Maryland was inspired by a like desire to establish principles of perfect religious tolerance. Even in Maryland, if Mr. Bancroft be right, as late as 1770 it was an offense punishable with death to deny the divinity of Christ. This was after the Catholic had been driven from power. Three of the five members of the committee who reported the Declaration of Independence— Mr. Jefferson, Dr. Franklin, and John Adams — were avowed Unitarians. So, if the law of Maryland had been strictly enforced, these men would have suffered death there if they had declared their faith. Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 29 Now, Mr. President, I do not speak of these things by way of reproach. The founders of these three States, foremost among mankind, set their faces toward the sunlight. They are not to be reproached because at the time they took the first step they did not take the last. I mention them only to draw the lesson that it is not fair for the American people to remem- ber against the Catholics only the cruelty, or wrong, or blindness of past ages and to forget the cruelty or wrong in which our own ancestors had a share. The American Catholic, in the early days, laid the State which he founded on the eternal principle of religious toleration. The American Cath- olic did his full and noble share in winning the liberty and in framing the Constitution of the country which he loves as we do, and which we love as he does. Let the statue of Charles Carroll, the great statesman of the Revolutionary day, the survivor of the most illustrious company of men that ever assembled on the face of the earth since the Apostles, stand in yonder stately chamber, with the statue of Pere Marquette, the Discoverer, and with those of their peers of every State and of every faith, until time shall be no more! The cord of our destiny is made up of many strands. That cord we hope and believe shall never be severed. The great doctrines of the Declaration may be clouded and hidden, only, as we hope, to shine again with a new and brighter luster when the clouds have passed by. The Constitution may be amended or altered or disregarded or may perish. Other forms of rule may take the place of the simple but sublime mechan- ism our fathers devised. But the nation shall abide. The one principle which holds this nation together, expressed in the brief but comprehensive motto, E Pluribus Unum, shall never fail or fade — E Pluribus Unum, of many, one — of many States, one nation; of many races, one people; of many creeds, one faith; of many bended knees, one family of God. [Applause in the galleries.] 3o Acceptance of Statues of Address of Mr. Dolliver, of Iowa. Mr. President: The reconstruction of the Capitol by the addition of the superb edifices in which the Congress now sits, left the old Hall of the House of Representatives deserted and silent; the scenes which had been enacted there only a memory; the voices which had been heard there oilly an echo of the past. There was at least a proper sentiment in the act of 1864, which for all time to come has made that historic chamber sacred by filling it with monuments which recall the great traditions of the national life. Mr. Emerson has described the art of the sculptor as the crudest and most helpless expression of the higher faculties of the human mind. It has been even more difficult to select the men to be commemorated than to find artists equal to the task of restoring the image of their person in bronze or marble. In selecting figures to stand in this National Gallery, the older States have an advantage over the new, and most of them have wisely chosen to perpetuate the fame of leaders conspicuous in their colonial life. The State of Maryland, among the most ancient of the American Commonwealths, has picked out two names famous and honored in her annals, both before and after the Revolution, and brings them here to take their place among their equals in this hall of fame. In the case of one of them, John Hanson, she has done a tardy act of justice to a man whose eminence in the public service had been almost lost in the waste of time; a man who in a peculiarly appropriate sense was the representative of the national ideal throughout the Revolutionary struggle. The other, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, had already a defiinite and secure place among the immortals; not altogether because he was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, for many of them have been literally forgotten, but because when he signed it he added his residence for the purpose, so the Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 31 fascinating story ran, of enabling the British to find him when they got ready to execute him for treason, along with his wicked associates, according to law; and for the reason that he survived all his contemporaries. Both were men of commanding talents and irreproachable virtues, and each was in a true sense a distinct embodiment of the spirit of his age. The erection of their statues in the National Capitol is particularly appropriate in these days when the foundations of the national faith are under examination in the light of passing events, and when the American people need more than ever to learn the lessons taught by our fathers. It is always helpful and refreshing to consider the influ- ences which worked together in the formation of the govern- ment under which we live, and it can not be doubted that the people of Maryland acted with wisdom as well as patriotism when their legislature chose from the long list of her orators, her statesmen, her soldiers, her jurists, these two names which appear side by side among the signers of the protest issued by the "Association of the Freemen" of the State, a year before the Declaration of Independence was framed at Phila- delphia, and which are associated in honorable prominence throughout the whole Revolutionary period. In all future times as the restless throngs, passing through the corridors of the Capitol, pause for a moment before these stately figures the story of our heroic age will be told over and over again, as one generation after another is touched by the inspiration of these epoch-making lives. The State of Mary- land in thus honoring the men who spoke and acted for her in the great crisis out of which the National Government arose, when with her scant population and her meager resources she devoted her blood and her treasure, without limit and without terms, to the cause of independence, has encouraged the revival of popular interest in those studies which contribute to a rational interpretation of our history as a people, for it can not 32 Acceptance of Statues of be denied that the tendency is strong in the midst of pros- perous material surroundings to treat with indifference and neglect the day of small things when the American Republic was taking its first feeble steps toward the arena of the world's great affairs. The very distance of those memorable years, not to speak of the intervention of tremendous national experiences more recent, has cut off, in a measure at least, the popular view of colonial times, leaving them dim and intangible; making Washington, for example, look more like a marble image than a man, and, with the exception of old Israel Putnam and Col. Ethan Allen, preserving hardly a human likeness of any of the great heroes who surrounded him. Now, the history of the world, and especially of our part of it, is the most important study that can attract anybody's atten- tion, notwithstanding so much of it is entirely incredible and so much of it obviously false. So far as it has been written down at all, it has been written, so it looks to me, more for the purpose of giving artificial importance to a few generals and a few kings than for the purpose of bringing into view the obscure millions who, after all, make up States and Com- monwealths. I have sometimes wished that some historian, some divinely gifted man or woman, might do for our own country what great creative intellects have done for other lands — what Lord Macaulay, for example, has done for England, or Thomas Carlyle for Scotland — might take us back to the sources of our strength; might show us the people themselves, their speech, their houses, their habit as they lived; might show us the unmistakable beginnings of the nation. For there, we are persuaded, around tables spread with the frugal comforts of life and about family altars made sublime by simple faith in God and man, was begun the mighty work whose outcome is the permanent self-government of this vast continent. I stood the other day in the museum of the library of the Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 33 State Department and read over again the rude manuscript, in the handwriting of Mr. Jefferson, of the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, with its curious erasures and interlineations. In the same case, right by the side of it, also in the handwriting of Jefferson, is a clumsy drawing of the monument which he desired to have erected to his memory, together with the inscription which he would have written upon it. He wished to be remembered as the author of the Declara- tion of Independence, of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and as the father of the University of Virginia. But most of all he desired posterity to know him as the author of the Declaration of Independence — a title surely to an immor- tality such as belongs to only a few of the great names of history. It would be an idle thing for anybody to try to take away from Jefferson the renown of that handwriting. It certainly would be a grievous offense against the truth to try to take it away from Jefferson, as a famous orator of our times, now dead and gone, has sought to do, and give it to Thomas Paine or to any other man. Yet there is a grim significance in the fact that time in dealing with the engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence has carefully preserved every letter in every line of the instrument itself, and at the same time with a gentle hand has rubbed out the name of every one of the illustrious group of statesmen whose signatures authenticated the instrument in the archives of the Continental Congress. Even the name of John Hancock, which scrawled across the page so that the King's ministers might not fail to see it, has faded to an indistinct impression upon the parchment, while not even a slender outline is visible of the hardly less noted name of that delegate from the province of Maryland who was supposed, until the higher critics got hold of his biography, to have added to his signature his post-office address, so that the King's hangmen should not get hold of the wrong member of the Carroll family. S. Doc. 13 3 34 Acceptance of Statues of It may be an idle fancy, but I have sometimes thought that this strange disappearance of these historic names illustrates in a mysterious sort of way the real origin of the Declaration, not in the signature of a few men, but in the minds and hearts and united purposes of the people of all the colonies. It ought to be remembered that the war for independence was well under way before the Congress which framed the Dec- laration of Independence had fairly entered upon its work. Many of the colonies, like Maryland, under the leadership of her Hansons and her Carrolls, had long before declared their independence. Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill had all been fought; Charlestown and Norfolk had been burned to ashes by the British troops; the startled garrisons of the Canada frontier, whatever their opinions of the Conti- nental Congress, had gracefully acquiesced in the will of the Great Jehovah as interpreted by the Green Mountain Boys; Washington had been appointed commander in chief of all the American forces, and Lord Howe, correctly measuring the genius of the great soldier, had already evacuated Boston. So that the Declaration of Independence was in no sense a declaration of war and hardly even a proclamation of hostili- ties already begun. It was an instrument which simply put down in writing what for generations had been taking shape and gathering force about quiet firesides throughout the British possessions. The colonies were one hundred and fifty years old, and while they were English in name and never ashamed of their heritage, there was not in them any deep-seated attachment to the British Crown. Indeed, there never had been any such attachment among those classes of the English people out of which the most of the American immigration had come. The distinguished Senator from Maryland [Mr. McComas] has referred to the speech of the Earl of Rosebery at the time of his inauguration as the lord rector of the University of Glasgow, when he took occasion to say that an enlight- ened colonial policy in the eighteenth century would have Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 35 prevented the dismemberment of the British Empire. There may be possibly a sense in which this is true. It is at least certain that such a colonial policy as prevailed in England in the eighteenth century, and in Spain up to the end of the nineteenth, would have left the British throne without the loyalty of a commonwealth of Englishmen any- where in the world. If I correctly remember Lord Rose- bery's words on that occasion, he suggested that if the elder Pitt had remained in the House of Commons and had kept the counsel of the King, a way would have been found to make a settlement of the problem consistent with the integ- rity of the Kingdom. Possibly that would have been so; at an}- rate, it is certain that our fathers could speak no such words .for themselves as were spoken for them in the Parliament of England by Edmund Burke and the Earl of Chatham. I have no lack of apprecia- tion of the enchanting dream, to which the Senator has referred, in which Lord Rosebery relates what might have happened if the King's subjects in America had held fast to their alle- giance. In his vision he sees them increasing and multiplying as the United States has increased and multiplied, their repre- sentation in the House of Commons gradually outnumbering the membership at home, until at last there would have appeared a strange spectacle — the Queen, led by her ministers and followed by both Houses of Parliament, with pomp and ceremony, transferring the capital of the Empire from London to New York or Chicago, leaving the old capital only a museum of political antiquities, a mere military outpost in a world-wide British Empire. It may be an ungracious thing to disturb an hallucination so splendid, but for all that it is a vision of the day, for it is impossible to imagine a parliamentary wisdom able to prevent a free English race from taking possession in their own name of the continent they had won from the wilderness; and it is harder still to conceive of a statesmanship equal to the task of turning aside the purpose of God in ordering the destiny of the 36 Acceptance of Statues of New World. I have said that the independence of America originated not with the leaders of the people, but with the people themselves. So that it is literally true that members of the Continental Congress, who, like Charles Carroll, shared in the proceedings only long enough to sign the Declaration, weeks after it had been framed and passed, lose nothing of their claim on the gratitude of mankind from the fact that their participation in the national movement was mainly in the quiet neighborhoods where they lived and among the people with whom they conversed from day to day. American independence was first of all declared in the churches, in the newspapers, in the courts of law — in the churches in io,odo sermons based upon texts taken from the militant literature of the old Jews; in the newspapers wherever a free press had been set up, as it had been in Maryland from the first settlement of the province down to the time when Charles Carroll, under an assumed name, leaped into distinction as an advocate of the national cause in a series of controversial letters; in the courts of law wherever the obnox- ious acts of Parliament were brought in controversy. Indeed, there is a sense in which the independence of America may be said to have originated in the court-houses of Massachusetts and Virginia and to have been first declared by the attorneys at law in the ordinary practice of their profession. It is interest- ing if not instructive, in view of the manifold popular prejudices which have beset the learned occupations of the bar in after generations, to recall the beautiful harmony which once existed between the embattled farmers and the lawyers of that day with their quillets, their cases, their tenures, and their tricks. John Hancock was an important citizen of Boston, possibly the most important, and just after the passage of the stamp act he imported into that town a cargo of Madeira wine, of which, it would appear from the record, our fathers were accustomed to take a little for their stomach's sake and their often infirmities; and owing to the universal feeling which Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 37 everywhere prevailed against the stamp act, Mr. Hancock felt at liberty to unload his cargo in the night without going through the formality of paying the duties required by law. But as soon as the revenue officers found it out they brought an action against him to recover the delinquent taxes, and he hired a Boston lawyer by the name of John Adams to defend him. Now, Mr. Adams, according to the custom of the day, was keeping a diary, and his entries in the little book about this time are very entertaining. For example, "Sunday, at home with my family, thinking." If Mr. Adams, after the manner of the modern practitioner, had charged Mr. Hancock for lying awake at nights thinking about his case, the latter patriot would not have had money enough left to reach the Philadelphia Congress, of which he had already been elected a thember, for a similar entry repeat- edly appears in the diary. For example: ' ' Christinas; at home; thinking, reading, searching concerning taxation without con- sent." It was an epoch-making case, and John Adams went into it like Peter the Hermit preaching the first crusade. It was not a question of fact; it was a grim and momentous question of law. What Mr. Adams said is fortunately pre- served. ' ' My client, Mr. Hancock, ' ' said he ' ' never consented to it. He never voted for it himself and he never voted for any man to make such a law for him." There is the first half of the American Revolution in one sentence. That case never came to trial. They took a good deal of testimony, and it was continued from time to time, but never brought to a final judgment, because the next spring, along about the middle of April, it was settled out of court by the battle of Lexington. In the meantime some curious litigation was going on in one of the Southern colonies. By the original charter of Virginia the established Church of England was made a part' of the civil establishment of the colony, and the salaries of the parsons, as in the case of other public officials, were paid out of the public treasury, in tobacco, which was the standard of 38 Acceptance of Stahies of value of the time. In the depression of business which followed the French and Indian war there was a universal demand for the retrenchmemt of expenditures, which took the form, as it commonly does in such cases, of a reduction of official salaries. They cut them all down, including the salaries of the parsons, which were made payable no longer in tobacco, unless it were reckoned at 2 pence a pound. As long as that was about the value of tobacco, everybody was satisfied, including the parsons, until tobacco rose con- siderably, when the}' began to see the difference and raised a clamor so loud that it finally reached the ears of the Bishop of London, who induced the King to veto that act of the legislative assembly of Virginia. The parsons took the position that the act having been vetoed it became void, and, being duly advised by counsel, t"hey began actions to recover the salaries due them and withheld without authority of law. The judges, who were appointees of the Crown, very promptly and, from a superficial legal standpoint, very properly decided that the King having vetoed the act it was void, and all proceedings taken by virtue of it without legal effect, and that therefore the parsons had the right to recover. But having no jurisdiction at common law to render a verdict sounding in damages, they took a test case and sent it to the jury to determine the amount of the recovery. At this point there appears upon the scene a strange and now almost fabulous figure, the most marvelous popular orator who ever spoke our tongue, Patrick Henry, a young Virginia lawyer, with his first important case in court. Tradition relates that he was awkward and ungainly in his appearance, and at first halting and lame in his speech, but that as he warmed with his theme he rose to a splendid level of eloquence, and when he had finished had made for his name an immortal place in the legends of patriotism and liberty. What he said also is fortunately preserved. He denied the right of the English Crown to veto an act of the colonial Charles Carroll and John Hanson. 39 assembly in a matter in which the colony alone was con- cerned. "When the King of England," said he, "in the interest of a privileged class, interposes the royal veto against an act of the assembly of Virginia in a matter relating exclusively to the affairs of the colony, he ceases to be a father of his people and degenerates into a tyrant who has forfeited all rights to obedience." There is the second half of the American Revolution in one sentence; and that Virginia jury, which patiently listened to the instructions of the court, quietly filed out into its retiring room without food or drink, water alone excepted, and immediately came back with a verdict for the plaintiff, assessing his damages at 1 cent, was far gone along the main road to the independence of the United States. It was in the midst of little occurrences like these that we must seek the original draft of the Declaration of the Fourth of Juiy, and nowhere among the colonies was this spirit of manly resistance more universal than among the people of the province of Maryland, where the Carrolls and the Hansons had for years given the weight of their names and the influence of their fortunes to the aspirations of the community toward a larger and a truer national life. That aspiration found its first expression in an outburst against wrongs no longer tolerable; but if the grievances of the colonies had been the only cause of the Revolution, or even its most important motive, the opportunity was never lacking to settle the dispute on the basis of a full concession of all American claims. In fact, long before the war was over every objectionable act of Parliament had been repealed and every reasonable complaint redressed, so that it may be prop- erly said that underlying all the abuses against which our fathers protested, and deeper than all the blunders of the King's ministers in dealing with men of their own race, lay the profound and intuitive purpose of the people to create a government of their own and to take into their own keeping 4