The great object which the statesmen of the Revolution sought, was
the defense, protection, and good government of the whole, without
injustice to any portion of the people. Experience had taught them
that it was impossible for a great republic to grow up where its
every act of public policy was liable to be thwarted by the vote of
the individual States; therefore they framed an organic law at the
foundation of our common government, which gave the men of Carolina
and Massachusetts a name dearer than any sectional name--the name of
an _American citizen_! In that conflict of opinions, by a temper of
conciliation and brotherly love, by an earnest loyalty to freedom and
profoundest reverence for law, they framed that constitution which has
been the admiration of the world.
I yield to no man in my admiration for those noble men whose names are
our household words; but in this history I see the hand of God and
acknowledge that our nationality was his gift and not the fruits of
our fathers' wisdom. Ours is not the only nation who have sought to
be free. Strong arms and stout hearts have often failed--the world is
filled with the lamentations of the patriots and dirges for the dead.
God always gives to a nation its birthright and its name. A nation is
not a mere aggregate of households, or villages, or States--national
life is something beyond the fact that individual men have banded
together for mutual defense. This belonged to the savage tribes
who once roamed over this goodly land. They may be strong, daring,
freedom-loving men, without national life. There never was a nobler
race than the people who dwelt in the fastnesses of Scotland, but
their tie was only one of kindred; the family became a clan, separate
clans warred with each other in murderous strife, and Scotland was
a field of blood. Until the cross was firmly planted in Britain,
England had no nationality--it was a land of faction until the law
and providence of God became the people's guide, and then the nobler
name of Saxon became a Christian name to tell of all that is manly
and true. Our national life is the gift of God. No other hand could
gather out of other lands millions of people of different tongues and
kindred, and mold these into one mighty nation that shall receive
into itself the men of every clime, and stamp on them its own mark of
individuality, teaching them its language, making them its kin, and
binding them as one household under its own constitution and laws.
INDEPENDENCE BELL.--_July 4th_, 1776.
When it was certain that the Declaration would be adopted and
confirmed by the signatures of the delegates in Congress, it was
determined to announce the event by ringing the old State-House bell
which bore the inscription, "Proclaim liberty to the land: to all the
inhabitants thereof!" and the old bellman posted his little boy at the
door of the hall to await the instruction of the doorkeeper when to
ring. At the word, the little patriot-scion rushed out, and, flinging
up his hands, shouted "_Ring!_ RING! RING!"
There was tumult in the city,
In the quaint old Quaker's town,
And the streets were rife with people
Pacing restless up and down;
People gathering at corners,
Where they whisper'd each to each,
And the sweat stood on their temples,
With the earnestness of speech.
As the bleak Atlantic currents
Lash the wild Newfoundland shore,
So they beat against the State-House,
So they surged against the door;
And the mingling of their voices
Made a harmony profound,
'Till the quiet street of chestnuts
Was all turbulent with sound.
"Will they do it?" "Dare they do it?"
"Who is speaking?" "What's the news?"
"What of Adams?" "What of Sherman?"
"Oh, God grant they won't refuse!"
"Make some way there!" "Let me nearer!"
"I am stifling!" "Stifle, then!
When a nation's life's at hazard,
We've no time to think of men!"
So they beat against the portal,
Man and woman, maid and child;
And the July sun in heaven
On the scene look'd down and smiled,
The same sun that saw the Spartan
Shed his patriot-blood in vain,
Now beheld the soul of freedom
All unconquer'd rise again.
See! See! The dense crowd quivers
Through all its lengthy line,
As the boy beside the portal
Looks forth to give the sign!
With his small hands upward lifted,
Breezes dallying with his hair,
Hark! with deep, clear intonation,
Breaks his young voice on the air.
Hush'd the people's swelling murmur,
List the boy's strong joyous cry!
"_Ring!_" he shouts, "RING! _Grandpa_
_Ring!_ _Oh_, RING for _Liberty_!"
And straightway, at the signal,
The old bellman lifts his hand,
And sends the good news, making
Iron-music through the land.
How they shouted! What rejoicing!
How the old bell shook the air,
Till the clang of freedom ruffled
The calm gliding Delaware!
How the bonfires and the torches
Illumed the night's repose,
And from the flames, like Phoenix,
Fair Liberty arose!
That old bell now is silent,
And hush'd its iron tongue,
But the spirit it awaken'd
Still lives,--forever young.
And while we greet the sunlight,
On the fourth of each July,
We'll ne'er forget the bellman,
Who, twixt the earth and sky,
Rung out OUR INDEPENDENCE;
Which, please God, _shall never die_!
THE SCHOLAR'S DIGNITY.--_Hon. George E. Pugh July 5th_, 1859.
The purpose of all genuine effort, beyond the satisfaction of physical
wants, should be to enlarge the compass of human sympathy and desire,
to purify, elevate, ennoble the intellectual constitution of our race.
God has so created us that these results can be attained by simple
and even direct agencies. Man is a sympathetic being; and the full
discharge of his obligation toward his own family, his friends, his
neighbors, is the method by which he can best discharge his duty in
other relations; toward God and his country, toward the millions of
his fellow-beings now alive, and the millions who will inherit the
earth in a course of ages. Hence arise man's real pleasures, and (not
less) his noblest responsibilities and actions. But, as our nature
is composed of appetites and passions which rightly adjusted, each
with another, lift us almost to the dignity of the Godhead, but when
disorganized, show us to be meaner than the brutes; so civil society,
or the association of mankind pursuant to the Divine order, while
capable, in its normal state, of the utmost happiness for all its
members, is now disorganized and demoralized, its sweet bells of
sympathy turned to discord, even its charities stained by selfishness
and base pretension; its capacities for good entirely perverted to
the oppression, to the cruel debasements of the multitude, and to
the unjust advantage of a few. Here is the field of chivalry for
him--scholar and squire who would be something more--conscious of his
earnest duty, of the vast rewards which must crown success, and alive
to the inspiration of all the past, the present, and the future; here
is a field on which he may win the gilded spurs of knighthood, and
where, with his own arm, he can truly redress the innocent, rescue
the unfortunate, and reclaim even the oppressor to a recognition of
the rights of the oppressed. Or, if he would choose a holier part,
although less conspicuous, it may be, let him join that valiant array
of pioneers which is marching now (as, in time past, it ever has
marched) at the head of the generation; hewing down primeval forests
of ignorance; bridging the torrents of crime; leveling mountains of
doubt and difficulty; filling up quagmires of sorrow; that so, in age
after age, the hosts of pilgrims from the cradle to the grave shall
traverse their distance without harm, and measurably anticipate, if
not realize, the beatitude of toil forever accomplished.
In a true sense, the scholar is a king of the noblest power. Not
his that dominion which exercises itself over the bodies of men,
subduing alike their happiness and their will, making of his
fellow-creatures a mere sport or convenience, but that dominion
which exists by the full consent of the governed, and without which,
in reality, their happiness and peace can not be secured. [Nam,
uti genus hominum compositum ex anima et corpore, ita res cunctæ,
studiaque omnia nostra, corporis alia, alia animi naturam sequuntur.
Igitur, præclara facies, magnæ divitiæ, ad hoc vis corporis, alia
hujuscemodi, omnia brevi dilabuntur; at ingenii egregia facinora,
sicuti anima, immortalia sunt. Postremo, corporis et fortunæ bonorum,
ut initium, finis est: omnia orta occidunt, et aucta senescunt: animus
incorruptus, æternus, RECTOR HUMANI GENERIS, agit atque habet
cuncta, neque ipse habetur.] The liberty of men does not stand in
rebellion against the truth, nor against the truly-anointed genius of
the age:
Unjustly thou depravest it with the name
Of servitude, to serve whom God ordains,
Or Nature; God and Nature bid the same,
When he who rules is worthiest, and excels
Them whom he governs. This is servitude,
To serve th' unwise, or him who hath rebell'd
Against his worthier.