I^k ^Y^CuCy^ji, iC^jrr-^JU-L ^ Glass E 2^^-U- Book_,N5^- '^00 v> •>-' \ American Liberty. AN ORATION BY HOMER B, SPRAGUE, AT NEW HAVEN, CONN., WEDNESDAY, JULY 4th, 1900, AMERICAN LIBERTY. Tb - ppjech of Homer B. Spiague, or New York, orator of the day of the Fourth of July celebration in Center e^h'irch yesterday contained the follow- ing: Anions the great festivals of the worl !. the American Fourth of July holds a unique and conspicuous place. The pi:ig onward and westward. a tidal wave of joy, till the broad continent Is fnye'sed. and the chorus of ringine bells and booming cannon and the diapason of mimic war mingle with the m.urmurs of the Pacific seas And what is the significance of all this? Not holiday pleasurei. Fond as Young America and children of a lar- e^v erowth justly are of the spectacle nf life and pomp and pyrotechnic ■splendor, and the milllonfold rattle and roar of explosive toys and martial music and stirring chimes and cannon °,'i!s. all bespeaking universal gladness .md irresistible force, the sentiment 'vhich creates this aniversary is far deeper. Nor is it chiefly pride of ancestry or reverence for the Fathers. Indeed, notwithstanding our patriotic socie- ties, "Sons and Daughters," of the great and good, we have far too little of this. We undervalue the men who carried America In their heart and brain in "the times that tried men's souls." Because he has seen steam navigation and trolley cars and incan- r'escent lights and telegraphs and phonographs, the youth of ten or tweli/e thinks himself wiser than Benjamin Franklin. The third-ra'te politician, who has bought a seat in Congress smiles patronizingly on George Wash- ington who "could not tell a lie," and who knew so little of the "strenuous life" and America as a "world power." Yet .glorious and true were these, and toweling above most if not all of the men of today, as the monument at the national capital lifts its head abote the trade and tramp of business, the tumult and the shoutin.g of the str-ets, the wrangling and the babble of Con- g-ess. Thomas Jefferson, James Ma'^'i- son, Alexander Hamilton. John Adams, — -ah. there were gi.ints in those d?iys: And if onr American Fourth of July served no other pu-pose than to keep their memories alive and waft their rames and dpeds on the wings of elo- nuence and song to distant lands an3 ages, the service this day would ren- der to our country and to humanity would still be of inestimable worth. But 'everence for ano>:stors Is not the chief inp--enient in our cup of joy and thfinks.glving today. Nor is it mainly love of countiy. We cannot have too much of the genuine; we cannot have too littlo of the sham. We devoutly thank God this day for Nf>w England; once supposed to be the brain of the nation; with her universal diffusion of knowl- edge and morality; her great edu- cational institutions that still lisht the land; her unsurpassed Ingenuity, in- ventiveness, enterprise, energy, mind mixed w-Ith muscle, wringing -n-ealth from flinty rock and barren sand and ocean waste — for New England, with all her precious history; — for the Mid- dle States, so l-ong the heart of the republic, with their industrial activl- AMERICAN LIBERTY. ties and amazing wealth, cause an 1 effert rombinr""! In ^^^'^'--'nnreasln^ vol- ume; their vnst. ever-enlarging, ever multiplying cities — New York. Phllaa- phia, and, the rest — mental and moral, as we would tain bellev.3, keeping pace with materlfi! progress: — for the New South, purlfiod bj sihtow and suffer- ing, and looking with reasonable con- fidence to the glory that shall yet be hers, to the intelligence that shall flourish like her corn and cane and fragrant leaf, to the peace and purity that shall whiten her summer robes like the hail of rice and the snow of cotton, to the atmosphere that shall yet be as redolent of justice as of the magnolia and orange groves: and to ;he hum of machinery blending with the strains of highest art In sweeter music than the old plantation songs: — for the great West, with its marvelous vigor, its unparalleled growth in all that is great and good. Its eftlorescence In mighty and be.iutlful cities. Its seas of golden grain, its cattle on a thou- sand hills and plilns: — for the center of Noith Amerlc-i, ^^^e Northwest — the great heart of the Continent be.nting so strongly yet so soundly, where, with- in the last twenty-five years, the voices of prayer and praise, the busy mur- mur of school-rooms the ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song have been substituted for the howls of sav- age beasts and more savage men: — f'lr these portions of the best, fairest land i-rder the sun. Yes, and for the newborn far West, beyond the mountains; where the scripture Is fulfille 1. a nation Is born In n day; where the Occident shall by and by rival or outshine the Orient: and where the flakes of precious dust are upturned in so many a furrow, gleam through the ripples of so many a stream, and sparkle on so many a mountain peak, that Young America half believes the gorgeous yellnw of the sunset sky to be but the reflected tints of that Hnd of gold! All these, every section, we love. Bit they are only parts of one majestic whole— "Distinct like the billows. t>ut one like th. <-':t:' That one. that whole, is the TTnion — the central sun of these forty-five plan- ets, embracing all. giving unity, life, health, safety, joy. to all. Our coun- try, our whole country, from ocean to ocean, from the Lakes to the Gulf — the source -^f Innumerable blessings in the past, the source of immeasurable bless- ings yet to come. If true to the prin- ciples and faithful to the preeept.s of those heroic souls who laid its fri:.- datlons and who sanctified it by tKelr toils, their tears, and their blood. We may well make the language of the Swedish Songstress our own — "1 greet \\ith a full heari ihe land of Ihe WfcSt. Whose banner of stars o'er the earth :s l.tmU- .: Whose c-iiiplre o'ershadows Atlantic's wide ttitiitit. And opp s to the sunset Its galcway of g.ikl.- Thf lanil of the mountains, the land of the lake. And rivers that roll in magnificent tide. Where the souls of the mighty from slum- ber awake T.i hallow »he soil for whose trL-edom they died!" ' Foi whi se freedom the;- di dl ' Thvi' lived, labored, fought, died lo, freeJo^n "Fur youi- freedom I call you happv,'' said the younger Cyrus to the ten th.'u sand Greeks; "for well you know that 1 would choose freedom in pr^fe ence to all I possess, and manifold more be- sides." Libejty has been the central principle — the soul of the American republic, more beautiful than the bloom and the gayety of these joyous hours, more precious than t-e memo y of our sainted faihers who laid il.ose foundn- tions: more inspiring thai, the contem- plation of this vast superstructure it- self, now lifting its mighty dome over the centre of the continent, its wings resting on the lakes and the gulf, its pillared fronts facing two oceans — is that which Imparts this beauty, this preciousness. this inspiration; that which pervades all; that which created and which still hallows this anniver- sary. J mean American Liberty. For nations like individuals have dominant traits or even ruling pissions. China has always stood for conserva- tism; Assyria for brute force: Phoeni- cia for commerce: Israel for purity; Eg pt. life: Persia. light; Athens, art: Sparta, prowess; Rome, dominion: France. glo:y: Spain, religion: England, wealth; America, liberty. A centui y and a quarter after Col^im- bus, the Pilgrim F.tthe's came, bring- ing rell!;ious liberty. They never per- secuted for heresy. ' Aye call It holy ground— The spot whore first they trod— — Th»y left onstaim^d what ttere they found Freedom to worship God." A century and a half rolled away, and amid the storm of the American revo- lution, political liberty, national inde- pendrnce. was born. Another genera- tion passed, and the war of 1812 wrest- ed from Englanl personal liberty on AMERICAN LIBERTY. the high seas. Fifty years later came the tremendous conflict that broke the chains of three million slaves. T.,e closing yeais of this century have seen the great republic smite the shackles from more than a million Cubans. Thus •with the exception of our contest with Mexico, aad our present batiling wl'.h the Philippine Islands, all our great na- tional struggles have been for liberty. And what is American Liberty? It is commonly said that natural liberty Is freedom from all rest-aint, but the laws of nature; civil liberty, freedom from arbitrary interference with one as a member of a community; political lib- erty,, in the case of an individual, iree- r"om to participate in the making of laws, anij in the case r.f a st .te, inde- pendence, sovereignty; personal liber- ty, freedom from personal restraint; .r ligious, liberty, freedom from got'ern- mentul inte;fe;ence in matte:s of con- science. But these are ab"itract terms. Lit us particularize. Among (he ingredients that make up Ame lean liberty are these: Freedom to speak or print, to assemble peace- ably, to petition for redre?s of griev- anc-:s, to keep ,:nd bear arms, to travel rnmolcsted on the public highways; the rirht of trial by jury, of habe-is cor- pus; cf confronting and examining ac- tusers; of choosing find being "hosen to offi e; of enjoying life, liberty, proper- ty, in any way not harmful to others; the right to one's house as his castle— a castle inviolable, so that in the elo- quent language of Lord Chatham, "The poorest man in his cottage may bid de- fiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail; its .-oof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter it; but the king of England cannot enter it. All his power dares not cross the threshold of that ruined tenement!" Abraham Lincoln's famous phraseol- ogy, "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." well sums up the result. It is important to under- stand the matter. The leading theories of the origin of Society and of Government are re- duc-ble to three. First, the Greek theory, propounded by that keenest of intellects, Aristotle. He describes man as "a political ani- "^al." One of the deepest thinkers of America, our fellow citizen of Connec- ticut, the late Dr. Horace Bushnell, ii^ps an e''uivalent expressiin, "We are '■Ivll-snciety creatures." Tlr^v start ./Ith the assumption that mai is bv n.T- ture gregarious. As water is the ele- ment for flshes, and air for birds, so fell 'Wship, association, is for man. Into society he is born, in s >ciety he lives, by society he is moulded, to" society he is irresistibly drawn. It is the natural whole of which he is a part. After its very eailiest stages it becoiries an or- ganism all parts mutuall;- means and ends. The military department is its light arm; the parliarrent, "talking ap- paratus." its tongue; the ruler or rulers. One or more, its brain. Though thru conception tends to mr'gnify the state and to minify the individual, it yet tends also to conciliate him as ptrt of a mi-^hty machvie. By it society and gov- ernment appear in the light of friendly accessions to miiister to his needs. It dea's chiefly in affirmations — "Thou Shalt" It is the 'h"ory of natural or- i.?in, ppontanous pvolution. Second, the Pooial- compact theory. It asEnmes that man is by nature an Ish- mrel. Nearly two thousand yefits ""O Cicei-o sug-p-ested that the primitive condition of men is one of mutual en- mity. George Buchanan in 1579 more than hinted that -he people consciously combine to originate kingly power. Three centuries ago Richard Honker, in his Rcclesiastical Polity, outlined the theory of comp='.?t as the o'igin of govcnment. Hugo Grotius in ]6:J0 assumed an implied if not expressed compa't Vet^ "ee'i u'ers and ru'es. John Milton, two hundred anrl fifty years ago asserted with emphasis, that "the pow- er of kings and mafistvatn Pe-Fians;" and the other, •'St'-anger, tel' the Lacedae- monians that we fire lying here in obe- dience to their laws." Such pat' ififism. however briliant It"! display, is esson'iilly narrow. It t''kes no account of right and wrong. It p"ts one's country above humanity, above God. It forgets that "Alan Is more than constitutions; better rot beneath the sod Than be trii» to rhnrch and state, while you'r'^ doubly false to God." A'most immediately after the consol- idation of all the nations of the civiliz- ed world into the Roman empire, stretching from the Atlantic to the Eu- phrates, and from the German Ocean to the Cataracts of the Nile, Christian- i.y came Hashing upon the h.,man mir.d the truth of the imaior.ality of the soul. Men saw and felt then, and increasingly so from age to age v.iil Rome iiseif went down beneath the baibariaa hordes, that the state was .gor;e--old Assyria, UalDylon, Egypt, Per- sia, Macedonia, Greece, Caithage— every state w<.s gone— n ly, the heavens and the tarth must pass away! 'The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces. The sol' mn temples, the great globe it- self— Yea, all which inherit, shall dissolve, Aod. like an insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack b^hiinl." — but the human soul must live on ex- panding foiever "with the power of an endless life ' — tlie nu.man soul, in com- paiism with wl icli all visible things sink into significance! •■l<''or thovigh the giant ages heave the hill And break the shore And txtrmore .Make and break and work their will— Thou.eh wcrUls on worlds in myriad myri- ads roil Round Ui. each with different powers •And other forms of life than ours — What know we greater than the soul?" By necessary imp'i ation thus was severed from the Greek theory of the origin of society and .government the fascinating but f .Ise offshoot that man exists mainly for the state. Thus was grafted upon it, to be ultimately incor- porated as the essential fibre of our tree of liberty, the vital, the all-im- portant t-uth. that the sate exiss for man. This is t' e fi st gre t distinctive foundnti n princirl^ of .*m=rican liber- ty: The S'ate exists for Man, not Man for the State. Then, too, with the advent of Ohris- ti^nity, was first seen the germ of Re- ligious Liberty, the entire separation of the Roi'itoal from the temporal power. Subjects of a "kingdom not of this world," the early discipleseschewed politics and taught simply obedience. But before the fall of Rome the church grasped and wielded imperial power even for the suppression of heresy. Falling with the empire :ir.d forced to struggle for existence through several centuries, the church at times threw siound her as a shield the doctrine of the mutual independence of spiritual and temporal authority. A second time gaining in powder and losing In purity, she exercised during a century or two of Feudalism co-ordinate civil author- ity. In 1073 Archdeacon Hildebrand assumed the pontifical robes. Under the title of Gregory the Seventh, "Gre- gory the Great," he crushed alike free- dom of conscience and state sovereign- ^ AMERICAN LIBERTY. ty, and revived under peculiar limita- tions the doctrine of "the divine risht of Kings." For more t'lan tlT ee ce-'- turies thi.s policy ruled the Christian church. Martin Luther an 1 his coad- .iulois did not hold the dootrine that civil law must not invade the dom ii of conscience. The Church of Eng- land never held it. The Puritans of New England never separated church and state. Our Pilsrim P^ithers at Plymouth nerer persecuted for reli- gion, but their .=nns did. In 163( Cecil ■ Calvert. Lord Bnltimore. established his colony of Romnn Catholi- s in Maryland and granted perfect tolera- tion. To Roger Williams two years later, at Provir^enoe, R. I., belongs the distinguished glory of first inco-pornt- ing in a politi""! co'istitutinn the prin- ciple of perfect freedom of conscience, entire separation betxteen church and state. Rut no larsre politiral body ever adopt 'd it as a part -f its frndamental l"w lill in 17re into life an infant empire springs' Ihere falls the iron from the soul! I .ere Liberiy's young accents roll ' P to the King of Kings' Z? I'^il 9r,?atioi"i's farthest bound lliat thrilling summons yet shall sound: The dreaming nations shall awake shake'""" '^^"^^^ earth's old kingdom Before the loftier throne of Heaven Jhe hand is raised, the pledge is given One monarch to obey, one creed to own.- That monarch. God: that creed his truth alone! Such in the abstract are so.-ne of the leading principles of American Liberty. All this republic f^els today something AMERICAN LIBERTY. of the concrete. But how little we realize its preciousness! We need a contrast. Go to England, where, with- in sight of the dome of St. Paul's a quarter of a million human beings live like dogs, mostly without work, with- out homes, without education, with nothing better than public charity in prospect for old age. Go to England, to France, to Germany, to Russia, where through rrilitarism every work- in-rman "carris on his back a soWier," who rides him as "the old man of the sea" rode Sinbad the Sailor, or is torn from home and friends to be himself a soldier and forced to live an unnat- ural life in camp or barracks during his best years. Think of the vigilant eyes of an omnipresent police: the nec- essity of passports; the prescribed and pioscvibed reiigion; the stifled speech, the compulsory ignorance, the grinding toil; the scissors of censorship alternating with the guillotine: the conscription worse than the press- tmns: the tax that plunders half the hard earnings; the haughty airs of a hereditary aristncracy: the impossibili- ty of • i?ing in the world: the torturing iron shell of go-vernment cramping and crushing every noble ambition, crip- pling ev3ry energy, iegr^ding man into a machine; the utter hopelessness of change, except through bloody and hazardous revolution: the exile of the innocent to some Devil's Island or far Siberia; now and then the swinging kiiout falling heavily on the quivering fosh of hieh-born women whose only cir^e is that they love freedom "not wisely but too w"U"; — compa'e all that with t>ie situation in free America! Think, too. of the cost of liberty. The destruction of all wealth in the seven- years' war; the general bankruptcy that followed it; the sufferings of a tattered famished army; the eleven thousand martyred in prison ships and elsewhere; the sanguinary fights; the ghastly wounds; the my- riads sl-^in; the blazing dwellings; the homes made desolate; the unive'-sal mourning — the seven-years' night of a Sony — these were but a part of the n'-ice our fathers paid rather than sub- mit to one tyrannical measure, taxation without representation. But freedom of conscience has cost at least a thou- sand times as many martyrs, a thou- sand times as much misery. "By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet 1 track. Tolling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back." In the enumeration of the cardinal principles of our liberty we have not dwelt upon the consent of the govern- ed as a source of the just powers of government. The doctrine is liable to misconstruction. Historically it has rarely or never been the original basis of government. Perhaps the nearest approach to it was in the cabin of the M.'.y flower a month before the landing at Plymouth; but that little body politic existed before the forty-one men sign- ed the compact and even long before the instrument was written. A gov- ernor was chosen by them before they sailed for England. The nine who di 1 not sign it, as well as the women and the minors, were equally bound to obe". Onr Confederate brethi-en always sought to jvistify their secession by pleading that they did not consent to hf governed by the Union. The answer is ^'ourfold. First, with hardly a single exception, every leading man in the Confederacy had solemnly given his consent by swearing to support the Constituticn of the United States, and every other man there had by his resi- dence identiTied himself with the or- ganism of the Union, and by his silence given his consent to its sway. Second- ly, reckoning the colored men, in no southern state had the majority ever consented to secession, but they were always at heart in favor of the United States. Thirdly, the true reason for the secession appears to have been a de.=ire to perpetuate the slavery which tot.iliy ignored consent. Fourthly, a law is sacred, and the great law of the Constitution especially so. Actions are more eloiuent and more diecisive than woids. "Silence gives consent." The Sabine maidens were torn from their country by the Romans. It was a high-handed outi'age deserving detith. Tint the Romans treated these prisoners kindly. They married them Homes were built Children were born. Los'e had succeeded to hatred. The original crime was forgotten Af'.er all had become peaceful and har- monioi'g. wou'd it not have been wrong to unsettle everything? by war to seek redress for the original wrong? Consent had supervened. On the eighteenth of November, 1777. when our Revolutionary War had been raging two years and seven months. Lord Chatham, the foremost of Eng- land's parliamentary orators, in his greatest speech in the House of Lords, exclaimed, "If I were an .American, as lO AMERICAN LIBERTY. I um an Rnprlisliman, while a foreign troop was landed in niy country, I nevpr would lay down my arms— NKVFR—NP:VETc— NEVER!" Foi- many j'^ais England had claimed the right to tax and bind the colonies "in all cases whatsoever " but the colonies h'ad never for an instant, either ex- pressly or hy implic:ation, CONSENT- ED to such government. In a few months, in 177S, Fixinco came to our aid: but the war contlrued ."everal years longer. England stilll called us "rebels," and technically the colonies were in "rebellion." ■Rebellion! foul dishonoring word! V.hose wrongful blight so oft has stained The holiest cause that tongue or sword Of mortal ever lost or gained! How many a spirit born to bless Has sunlc beneath that withering name. Whom but a day's, an hour's success, ilad wafted to eternal fame!" Now suppose that France, well know- ing our aspirations, after assisting us in our desperate gtruggle for Indepen- dence, and when the English armies were cooped up at Yorktcwn, Charles ton. Savannah, and New York, had made a treaty with England, whereby she paid England twenty million dollars and received from England all her right, title, and interest in America; had become recognized by international law as the owner and sovereign of Am- erica; had then demandonl of Washing- ton, and his compatriots submission to the authority of King Louis XVI. saying. as the poet Soiith- ey said in his life of Nel- son thirty years later, that the Am- erican people were "not fit for inde- pendence:" th.at they must accept the sovereignty of France or die. Suppose that V/ashington had resisted; that th"rcupon the French had poured an army of sixty or seventy thousand trained soldiers into thfse colonies; that after many months they h&d fought down all organized resistance, having killed off fiftern or twenty thousand of our poorly armed militia; that AVashington, having carried on for a while a guerrilla warfare, a "pred- atory war," as years before he said he woiild, if the worst came, w^as now hunted and hiding, and a,ll "armed rebellion" ag'ainst the Fremch sover- eignty had been at last utterly extin- 'Tuished; that the night of war was over, peace had fully dawned, business had revived, prosperity had come, courts of justice !iad oeen set in operation, schools hart been everywhere reopened, intermarriages had cemented ties of friendship between the two peoples, harmony had succeeded to discord, "benevolent assimilation," in which Frenchmen surpass all others, had heal- ed the wounds of war; — in a word, the American colonists had fully CON- SENTED to be subjects of France,— would it have been right, however In- fe'-nal the bargain between Fmnce and England may have once seemed, ai.d however horrible the hundred massa- cres by French troops of American men and women fighting for independence, — would it have been right, simply be- ePlcient working of tlie governmental cause independence had been denied them.— would it have been right for the colonies THEN to WITHDRA'W' their CONSENT, to raise the standard of revolt, renews the strife, and deluge th? land again with blood? Of the many dangers that now threat- en American liberty time forbids me to mention more than three or four. The heathen idea that man exists for the state, ond not the state for man. which in Greece gave rise to so splen- did displays of patriotism, now occa- sionally reappears under the plausible but essentially atheistic sentiment, "Our Country, right or wrong!" mean- ing that if our country, under the lead of any man or set of men, in open or secret defiance of the Divine Law, should undertake to perpetrate by force or fraud a great crime against any por- tion of the human race, we must not protest against it, but must loyally as- sist with all otir might in that perpetra- tion. For example, if, in the prosecu- tion of a wicked war for greed or glory against Mex'ico. our flag should come to float over 'the palace of ttie Mon- tezumas," that flag, no matter what for the moment it symbolizes, must never be hauled down' That, surely. Is PATRIOTISM RUN MAD. Lowell we'll burlesques it — "The side of our country must always t>e took. And President Polk, you know, he is our country: And the angel who writes all our sins in his book Puts (he debit to him, and to us the per contra-" Ag^amst This perv'ersion that makes a fetish of the dear old flag, and would dethrone the \lmighty, and against a kindred doctrine recently reiterated by high authority to the effect that "No other motive than interest is proper in politics," we will not argue, but simply cuir.tc a higher authority than that of a Yale professoir — "The wicked shall be AMERICAN LIBERTY. 1 1 turned into holl. and all the nations that forset God!" Just at this hour the chief peril that confront? us is. perhaps, th-e disposi- tion — the hungf-r for trade, for land, for oirioe, for military irlory, for "strenuous lite," or for the conversion of the heath- en — to plunge our nation into war. As a world power we must show our teeth and clenched fists, and get "a sphere of influence." Lord Bacon, in his es- .^ay on "The True Greatness of King- doms and Kstates," insists that it is most important "for empire and great- ness — that !i nation do profess ARMS as their principal honor, study, and oc- cupation;" that a state "should have those laws ond customs which may reach forth to them just occasions, as may be PRF.TKNDED of w'ar;" and that nations should be on the alert to PFTZE OPPORTUNTTIES TO QUAR- REL with other nations! That is claimed to be one way of promoting iJhriFtian civilization. So Mohammed spread his gospel. ■Just Allah! what must be thy look AVhen such a wretch before thee stands Liibliisliing with thy sacred book! Tunnns thv leaves with blood-stained hands, .find wresting from Its rage sublime 1-Jis creed of lust and hate and crime!" The greatest of American strate- gists declared, "War is hell." And the greatest of dramatists, in delineating his ideal sovereign, in whose lineaments as most Clitics concede, we may dis- cern much of Shakespeare himself, re- piesents that sovereign as shrinking with horror from making unjust war. He makes King Henry the Fifth, who had been tempted to seize the realm of France as his inheritance, saj- — ■My learned lord. We pray you to pro- ceed. And .instly and religiously unfold \Vhy the law Salique. that they have in Fr.ance. Or should or should not bar us in our claim. And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord. That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading. Or nicely charge your understanding soul. With onening titles miscriate, whose rigbt Suits not In native colors with the truth: 1 or G-od doth know how many now in health Shall drop (heir blood in approbation Of wiiat your reverence shall incite us to. Therefore.take heed how you impawn our person. How you awake the sleepmg sword of war: \VE CHARGE YOU IN THE NAME OF GOB. TAKE HEED! For never two such kingdoms did contend Without much fall of Bliod, whose guilt- less drops Are everv ore a v.-oe. a sore complaint 'G.ainst him who-- wrung gives edge un- to the sword That makes such waste In brief mor- tality. Under this conjuration speak my lord. M\Y I WITH RIGHT AND CON- SCIENCE MAKF, Tins Cl^AIM?" Yes, a war NOT STRICTLY' DEPEN- SIVlv is murder on a ereat scale. We may again quote Lowell — "At; for war — I call it murther! There you have it plain and flat: And I need to go no further Than my Testament for that!" liut the gie\.ite.-t of dangeis, ever present to American Liberty, is in the IGNOUAXiE OF THE VOTER. By virtue of the great foundation piinci- ple, which cannot he changed, that, be- fore the law, every man is the equal of evo-y other man, the interests of a na- tion vast ali'eady, and i>jrliaps destined to be mightier tlvan any other, arc t;i- trtisted to his hands. Qtiestions new, perplexing, momentous, are continually ri.= lng and pressing tor solution. Al every election, if at no other time, we are reminded that the government i? not only of the people and fo ■ the peo- ple, but also by the people. You are a voter, a ruler, a boverelgnl To your conscience, your children, your country, to a thousand millions of the living, to all coming geneiiitions, and to Almigh- ty God, yon are answerable, if, through your indolence, your ignorance. yoi;r neglect, yourfolly. your misconduct, thi- foundations of liberty are tindermined; law is tram.pled under the foot; your brother is crushed down to a level with brutes; the innocent are lynched by mobs, or shot to death on the highway; cOT'.uption sits in legislative halls, or is robed in judicial ermine; Anarcny lays its bloody hand on the Constitu- tion: armed hordes substitute the shot- gun or the bowie-knife for the ballot- box, or loaded dice or packages of tisvue paper for ballots, entangling al- liances drag us into a world-wide con- flagration: or .a blind, drunken, greedy, ambitions, maniac crew drive swift up- on the rock." of disunion or of shame- ful war the noblest ship that ever floated on the ocean of time! Let me propose for vour consideration a partial if not complete preventive and remedy, not of present ills, but of all that we may feel or fear in the not dis- tant ftiture. Let there he a Constitu- tional amendment, fixing, for evety wouM-be new voter, after a certain date, so high a standard of qualifica- tion." t.-.r admission to the elective fran- chise ."s to insure the Bafe. smooth, and 12 AMERICAN LIBERTY, efficient ymking^ of the srovernmental marhinery — soinetliingr like the follow- inr (^, >;-