union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the
common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.”
Then follow the articles and sections setting forth the principles
on which it was proposed to build up a nation in this western world.
The thirteen States each had its constitution and its laws, but _this
instrument_ was intended to serve as the foundation of the general
government. Until these States had formed their constitutions, there
was no republican government in the world except Switzerland and San
Marino, and these lived only on the sufferance of their powerful
monarchical neighbors. All South America was under Spanish rule, and
Mexico was a monarchy.
The great principle of a republic is that people _have a right to
choose_ their own rulers, and ought to do it. The divine right of
hereditary monarchy we deny. It is often said that the English
government is as free as ours; but it is not quite true, and will
not be true until every citizen is permitted to vote for his rulers.
Whether so much liberty is perfectly safe for all people is well open
to question; but it is a FACT here, and if people would only behave
themselves properly there would be no danger whatever in it. And if
there IS danger here, it comes not from native-born citizens trained
under our free institutions. The sun does not shine on a broader,
fairer land than this; and under that divine Providence, without
whose gracious aid we could not have achieved and cannot maintain our
Constitution, we have nothing whatever to fear for the present or to
dread in the future, but the evil men among us――the Anarchists and
Socialists, the scum and off-scouring of Europe――who, with no fear of
God before their eyes, so far forget the high aims of this government
and their own obligations to it as to seek to overthrow its very
foundations.
The highest and best types of monarchical governments are in Europe,
and it is with such that we seek comparison when we insist that ours is
better.
Monarchies are hereditary. They descend from father to the oldest
son and to the oldest son of the oldest son where there are sons.
England has rejoiced in two female sovereigns at least, Elizabeth, and
Victoria, the present sovereign; but they came to the throne because
there was no son in either case to inherit. The heir-apparent, whatever
his character or want of character, MUST reign when the sovereign dies,
because, as they say, he rules by divine right. We insist on electing
our President for a term of years, and if we like him we give him
another term; if we do not like him, we drop him and try another. I
wish the term of office of the President were longer, and that he could
serve only one term. Perhaps it will come to that; and I think he would
be a more independent, a better official under this condition.
What is the difference between the Constitution and the laws?
The Constitution is the great charter under which, and within which,
the laws are made. No law that Congress may pass is worth the paper it
is printed on if it is contrary to the Constitution. Such laws have
been passed ignorantly, and have died.
A very simple illustration is at hand. The constitution of this College
is Mr. Girard’s will. This is our charter. The laws which the Directors
make must be within the provisions of the will or they will not stand.
For instance, the will directs that none but _orphans_ can be admitted
here; and the courts have decided that a child without a father is
an orphan. The directors, therefore, cannot admit the child who has
a father living. The will says that only _boys_ can be admitted;
therefore no law that the Directors can make will admit a girl. Nor
can the Directors make a law which will admit a colored boy; nor a boy
under six nor over ten years of age; nor a boy born anywhere except in
certain States of our country――Pennsylvania, New York and Louisiana. It
would be UNCONSTITUTIONAL. I think now you see the difference between
the Constitution and the laws.
Now, again, is our government better than a monarchy? and why?
Because the men of the present time make it, and are not bound by the
traditions of far-off times. There are improvements in the science of
government as in all other human inventions, as the centuries come
and go. Man is progressive; he would not be worth caring for if he
were not. If the present age has not produced a higher and better
development in all essentials, it is our own fault, and is not because
men were perfect in the past or cannot be better in the present or in
the future. Therefore when our Constitution is believed not to meet the
requirements of the present day there is a way to amend it, although
that way is so hedged up that it cannot possibly be altered without
ample time for consideration. As a matter of fact, the Constitution has
been altered or amended fifteen times since its adoption; and it will
be changed or amended as often as the needs of the people require it.
We believe our form of government to be better than any monarchy
because _the people choose their own law-makers_. The Congress is
composed of two houses or chambers: the members of the Senate, chosen
by the legislatures of the States, two from each State, to serve for
six years; the members of the House of Representatives (chosen by the
citizens), who sit for two years only, unless re-elected. The Senate is
supposed to be the more conservative body, not easily moved by popular
clamor; while the Representatives, chosen directly and recently by the
voters, are supposed to know the immediate wants of the people. The
thought of two houses grew probably from the two houses of the British
parliament.
We cannot have an _hereditary legislature_ like the House of Lords in
the British parliament, whose members sit, as the sovereign rules, by
divine right, as they say, and with the same result in some instances:
for the sovereign may be a mere figure-head, or only the nominal ruler,
while the cabinet is the real government, and the House of Lords long
ago sunk far below the House of Commons in real influence. There is no
better reason for this than the fact that the people have nothing to do
with the House of Lords and the sovereign, except to depose and scatter
them when they choose to rise in their power and assert themselves.
We can have no _orders of nobility_ under our Constitution. There can
be no privileged class. All men are equal under the law. I do not mean
that all persons are equal in all respects. Divine Providence has
made us unequal. Some are endowed naturally with the highest mental
and physical gifts and distinctions; some are strong and others weak.
This has always been so and always will be so. Some have inherited or
acquired riches, while others have to labor diligently to make a bare
living. Some have inherited their high culture and gentle manners and
noble instincts, which, in a general sense, we sometimes call culture;
and others have to acquire all this for themselves――and it is not very
easy to get it. So there is no such thing as absolute equality, and
cannot be; but before the law, in the enjoyment of our rights and in
the undisturbed possession of what we have, we are all equal, as we
could not be under a monarchy. Here there is no legal bar to success;
all places are open to all.
There can be no law of _primogeniture_ under our Constitution. By this
law, which still prevails in England, the eldest son inherits the
titles and estates of the father, while the younger sons and all the
daughters must be provided for in other ways. Some of the sons are put
in the church, in the army or the navy, or in the professions, such as
law and medicine; but it is very rare indeed that any son of a noble
house is willing to engage in any kind of business or trade, for they
are not so well thought of if they become tradesmen.
There can be no _state church_, no _establishment_, under our
Constitution. In England the Episcopal Church, and in Scotland the
Presbyterian Church, are established by law; and until within the
last seventeen years the Church of England was by law established in
Ireland; and it is now established in Wales; and in other countries
of Europe the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church and the
Greek Church are established by law. In countries where there is a
national church, it derives more or less of its support from taxing the
people, many of whom do not belong to it; but in this land there is no
established church; and there never can be, let us hope and believe.
Under our form of government we need no _standing army_. We owe this
partly to the fact that we are so isolated geographically that we do
not need to keep an army. I heard the general of our army say, a short
time ago, that the regular army of the United States is a fiction――only
25,000 men. (You saw as many troops a few weeks ago in one day as are
in all our army.) “The real army,” he added, “is composed of every
able-bodied citizen; for all are ready to volunteer in the face of a
common enemy.” Our territory is immensely large already, and it will
probably be larger, but it will not again be enlarged as the result
of war. When we look at the nations of Europe, and see the immense
numbers of men in their standing armies, we can’t help thanking God
that we are separated from them by the wide Atlantic, and that we
have a republican government, and have no temptation to seek other
territory, and are not likely to be attacked for any cause. In the
armies of Great Britain, Germany, Russia, Austria, Italy, Turkey, are
more than ten millions of men withdrawn from the cultivation of the
soil and from the pursuits of commerce and manufactures. In Italy alone
the standing army is said to be 750,000 men! The withdrawal of so many
men from peaceful occupations makes it necessary to employ women to do
work which in our country women are never asked to do. I have seen a
woman drawing a boat on a canal, and a man sitting on the deck of that
boat smoking his pipe and steering the boat. I have seen a woman with
a huge load of fresh hay upon her head and a man walking by her side
and carrying his scythe. I have seen women yoked with dogs to carts,
carrying the loads that here would be put in a cart and drawn by a
horse. I have seen women carrying the hod for masons on their _heads_,
filled with stone and mortar. I have seen women carrying huge baskets
of manure on their backs to the field, and young girls breaking stone
on the highway. Did you ever hear of such things here? See what a
difference! The men in the army eat up the substance which the women
produce from the soil.
But nowhere else in the world is the _dignity of labor_ recognized as
here. They do not know the meaning of the words. For in most other
countries it is considered undignified, if not ungenteel, to be engaged
in labor of any kind. A man who is not able to live without work is
hardly considered a gentleman. To work with the hands is degrading;
is what ought to be done by common people only, and by people who are
not fit to associate with gentlemen and ladies. It is not so in this
country. Here, a man who is well educated and well behaved, and upright
and honorable in his dealings with men, who cultivates his mind by
reading and observation, and is careful of the usages of good society,
is fit company for any one. He may rise to any place within the gift of
his fellow-citizens, and adorn it. This is not so elsewhere. And think
of a young girl hardly out of her teens, with no special preparation
for such a distinction, but educated and accomplished, becoming the
wife of the President of the United States, and proving herself
entirely worthy of that high position! Could any other country match
this?
Now what is the effect of all this freedom of thought and action on the
people? Well, it is not to be denied that there are some disadvantages.
There is danger that we may over-estimate the individual in his
personal rights, and not give due weight to the people as a community.
There is danger of selfishness, especially among young people. There
is not as much respect and reverence for age, and for those above us,
and for the other sex, as there ought to be. Young people are very
rude at times, when they should always be polite to their superiors
in age or position. At a little city in Bavaria the boys coming out
of school one day all lifted their hats to me, a stranger! That would
be an astounding thing in a Philadelphia street! In riding in the
neighborhood of the city here, if I speak civilly to a boy by the
roadside, I am just as likely as not to get an impudent answer.
But in spite of these defects, which we hope will never be seen
in a Girard College boy, the true effect of training under our
republican institutions is to make men. There is a wider, freer,
fuller development of what is in man than is known elsewhere. Man is
much more likely to become self-reliant, self-dependent, vigorous,
skillful, here――not knowing how high he may rise, and consciously or
unconsciously preparing himself for anything to which he may be called.
And for woman, too, where else does she meet the respect that belongs
to her? Where else in the world do women find occupation in government
offices, on school boards, at the head of charitable and educational
institutions? With few exceptions, such as Girton College, where are
there in any other country such colleges as Vassar or Wellesley, and
as the Woman’s Medical College, almost under the walls of our own?
I have already kept you too long. But a few words and I am done. I am
moved by the injunction of Mr. Girard in his will not only to say these
things, but by this grave consideration also. Every boy who hears me
to-day, within fifteen years, if he lives, unless he is cut off by
crime from the privilege, will be a voter. You will go to the polls to
cast your votes for those who are to have the conduct of the government
in all its parts. I want to make you feel, if I can, the high destiny
that awaits you. You are distinctive in this respect――you are all
American boys. This can be said of no other assembly as large as this
in all this broad land. You have it in your power, and I want to help
you to it, and God will if you ask him――you have it in your power to
become American gentlemen. And I believe that an _American gentleman_
is the very highest type of man.
God, give us men. A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands:
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor, men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And scorn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking.
[Illustration: _James Lawrence Claghorn._]
JAMES LAWRENCE CLAGHORN.
When a man has lived a long, busy, useful and successful life it seems
proper that something more than the ordinary obituary notices in the
daily papers is due to his memory. This thought moves me to speak to
you to-day of a gentleman who died on August 25, 1884, while a Director
of the Girard College, and of whom it seems appropriate that something
may be said to you in this chapel.
Mr. James L. Claghorn was a distinguished citizen of Philadelphia. He
was born here on the 5th of July, 1817. His father, John W. Claghorn,
was a merchant of excellent standing, who in the latter years of his
life gave much time and thought to benevolent institutions. At the age
of fourteen years James left school to go into business. You boys know
how very incomplete an education at school must be which ends when the
boy is fourteen years old. But you don’t know until your own experience
proves it how hard it is for a half-educated boy to compete for the
high places in life or in business with boys of equal natural ability,
who have had the full advantage of a liberal school education. At
fourteen, then, James Claghorn turned his back on school and went to
work in earnest. For it was an auction store that he entered, and the
work there was usually harder work than in other kinds of stores. The
hours of labor were longer――earlier and later――and the holidays more
rare than in ordinary commercial houses.
There is no record of the early years of his business life; but it is
not difficult to imagine the hardships to which a young lad of that
time would be subjected. We can’t suppose that any indulgence was
allowed him because his father was one of the partners in the firm;
neither he nor his father would have permitted such distinction.
The boy must have been _industrious_; for in such a house there was no
place for an idle lounger. He was not afraid of work, for he was always
at it; he did not spare himself, else some other boy would have done
his share and got ahead of him; he must have been _faithful_, not one
who works only when his master’s eye is on him――not shirking any hard
work――not forgetting to-day what he was told yesterday――not thinking
too much of his rights or his own particular work, but doing anything
that came to hand――looking always to the interest of the firm, and
trusting the future for a recognition of his faithfulness.
And he must have been _patient_. Many rough words, many hasty and
passionate words are spoken to young boys, and must have been spoken to
this boy, and may have hurt him; but there is good reason to believe
from the character he built up that he knew how to hold his tongue and
not answer back. Not every boy has learned that useful lesson; and
hence the many outbreaks of passion and the frequent discharge of boys
who will “answer back” when they are reproved.
And I think also that he must have been of a bright and cheery
disposition and well mannered. Some young fellows who have to make
their way in the world seem not to know the importance of a good
address; in other words, politeness, good breeding. Nothing impresses
one so favorably at first meeting a stranger as good manners. A
frank, hearty greeting, a bright, cheerful face, a manly bearing, a
willingness to consider others, a desire to please for the sake of
giving pleasure, are of great importance. On the contrary, sullenness,
sluggishness, indifference, selfishness are all repulsive, and though
allowance will be made at first for the existence of such qualities,
yet they will hardly be tolerated long in a young person, and they
will certainly unfit him for a successful career. I did not know Mr.
Claghorn when he was a young lad; but I can hardly suppose that the
kindly, genial, hearty man in middle and later life could have been a
morose, sullen, sluggish, ill-mannered boy.
I have said that Mr. Claghorn left school while still a boy; but we
must not infer that he supposed his education was complete with the
end of his school life, for it is very evident that he must have
given very much of his leisure to self-improvement. We do not know
how his evenings were spent when not in the counting-house; but he
must have given a good deal of time to reading; and it is not likely
that the books which he read were such as are to be found now at any
book-stand, and in the hands of so many boys as they go to and fro on
their errands――books which are simply read without instruction, and
which sometimes treat of subjects which are unreal, extravagant, coarse
and brutalizing. Doubtless he was fond of fiction. All boys of fair
education and refined taste are more or less fond of fiction; but we
can hardly suppose that he gave too much of his time to such reading,
else he could not have become the strong business man that he was. At
a very early age he became fond of art, and gathered about him as his
means would permit engravings and pictures such as would cultivate his
taste in that direction. When he could spare the money he would buy
an engraving, if the subject or the author interested him; so that he
became, in the latter part of his life, the owner of one of the largest
collections of engravings in the whole country. Indeed, he became a
noted patron of art, and especially was he desirous of encouraging
_native_ art, so that at one period he had more than two hundred
paintings, the work of American artists; for at that time he was more
desirous of encouraging native artists, especially if they were poor,
than he was in making collections of the great masters. Many a picture
he bought to help the artist, rather than for his own gratification
as a collector. Further on in life he became deeply interested in
the Academy of the Fine Arts, which was then in Chestnut street
above Tenth. Subsequently he became its President, and very largely
through his influence and his personal means that fine building at the
southwest corner of Broad and Cherry street, which all of you ought
to visit as opportunity is afforded, was erected as a depository of
art. The splendid building of the Academy of Music at Broad and Locust
street, is also largely indebted to Mr. Claghorn for its erection.
But I am anticipating, and we must now go back to Mr. Claghorn in
his counting-house. No longer a boy――an apprentice――he has grown to
manhood, and has become a member of the firm, taking his father’s
place. Now his labors are greatly increased; the hours of business,
which were long before, are longer now; he begins very early in
the morning, before sunrise in the winter season, and is sometimes
detained late in the evening, the long day being entirely devoted to
business; and no one knows, except one who has gone through that sort
of experience, how much labor is involved in such a life; but not only
his labors――his responsibilities are greatly increased. He becomes the
financial man in the firm; he is the head of the counting-house; he
has charge of the books and the accounts. For many years no entry was
made in the huge ledgers except in his own handwriting. The credit of
the house of Myers & Claghorn becomes deservedly high. A time of great
financial excitement and distress comes on. This house, while others
are going down on the right and left like ships in a storm, stands
erect with unimpaired credit, and with opportunities of helping other
and weaker houses which so much needed help. The name of his firm was a
synonym of all that is strong and admirable in business management.
So he passed the best years of his whole life in earnest attention to
business, snatching all the leisure he could for the gratification
of his passion, it may be called, for art, until the time came when,
having acquired what was at that time supposed to be an abundant
competency, he determined to retire from business. Now he appears to
contemplate a long rest in a visit to other countries, and was making
arrangements looking to a long holiday of great enjoyment, when the
country became involved in the Great Rebellion. None of you, except
as you read it in history, know what a convulsion passed over the
country when the first gun was fired upon the flag at Fort Sumter.
Mr. Claghorn, full of love for his country and unwilling to do what
seemed to him almost like a desertion in her time of trial, gave up
his contemplated foreign tour, and applied himself most diligently and
earnestly to the duties of a true, loyal citizen in the support of the
government. He was one of the earliest members of the Union League,
and was largely interested in collecting money for the raising and
equipping of regiments to be sent to the front. Three or four years of
his life were spent in this laudable work, and in company with those
of like mind he was largely instrumental in accomplishing great good.
The war, however, came to an end――was fought out to its final and
inevitable issue.