* Delivered on the one hundredth Anniversary of the
Declaration of Independence, at Peoria, Ill., July 4, 1876.
July 4, 1876.
THE Declaration of Independence is the grandest, the bravest, and
the profoundest political document that was ever signed by the
representatives of a people. It is the embodiment of physical and moral
courage and of political wisdom.
I say of physical courage, because it was a declaration of war against
the most powerful nation then on the globe; a declaration of war by
thirteen weak, unorganized colonies; a declaration of war by a few
people, without military stores, without wealth, without strength,
against the most powerful kingdom on the earth; a declaration of war
made when the British navy, at that day the mistress of every sea, was
hovering along the coast of America, looking after defenceless towns and
villages to ravage and destroy. It was made when thousands of English
soldiers were upon our soil, and when the principal cities of America
were in the substantial possession of the enemy. And so, I say, all
things considered, it was the bravest political document ever signed by
man. And if it was physically brave, the moral courage of the document
is almost infinitely beyond the physical. They had the courage not only,
but they had the almost infinite wisdom, to declare that all men are
created equal.
Such things had occasionally been said by some political enthusiast in
the olden time, but, for the first time in the history of the world,
the representatives of a nation, the representatives of a real, living,
breathing, hoping people, declared that all men are created equal. With
one blow, with one stroke of the pen, they struck down all the cruel,
heartless barriers that aristocracy, that priestcraft, that kingcraft
had raised between man and man. They struck down with one immortal blow
that infamous spirit of caste that makes a god almost a beast, and a
beast almost a god. With one word, with one blow, they wiped away and
utterly destroyed, all that had been done by centuries of war--centuries
of hypocrisy--centuries of injustice.
One hundred years ago our fathers retired the gods from politics.
What more did they do? They then declared that each man has a right to
live. And what does that mean? It means that he has the right to make
his living. It means that he has the right to breathe the air, to work
the land, that he stands the equal of every other human being beneath
the shining stars; entitled to the product of his labor--the labor of
his hand and of his brain.
What more? That every man has the right to pursue his own happiness in
his own way. Grander words than these have never been spoken by man.
And what more did these men say? They laid down the doctrine that
governments were instituted among men for the purpose of preserving the
rights of the people. The old idea was that people existed solely for
the benefit of the state--that is to say, for kings and nobles.
The old idea was that the people were the wards of king and priest--that
their bodies belonged to one and their souls to the other.
And what more? That the people are the source of political power. That
was not only a revelation, but it was a revolution. It changed the ideas
of people with regard to the source of political power. For the first
time it made human beings men. What was the old idea? The old idea was
that no political power came from, or in any manner belonged to, the
people. The old idea was that the political power came from the clouds;
that the political power came in some miraculous way from heaven; that
it came down to kings, and queens, and robbers. That was the old idea.
The nobles lived upon the labor of the people; the people had no rights;
the nobles stole what they had and divided with the kings, and the kings
pretended to divide what they stole with God Almighty. The source, then,
of political power was from above. The people were responsible to the
nobles, the nobles to the king, and the people had no political rights
whatever, no more than the wild beasts of the forest. The kings were
responsible to God; not to the people. The kings were responsible to the
clouds; not to the toiling millions they robbed and plundered.
And our forefathers, in this Declaration of Independence, reversed this
thing, and said: No; the people, they are the source of political power,
and their rulers, these presidents, these kings are but the agents and
servants of the great sublime people. For the first time, really, in the
history of the world, the king was made to get off the throne and the
people were royally seated thereon. The people became the sovereigns,
and the old sovereigns became the servants and the agents of the people.
It is hard for you and me now to even imagine the immense results of
that change. It is hard for you and for me, at this day, to understand
how thoroughly it had been ingrained in the brain of almost every man,
that the king had some wonderful right over him; that in some strange
way the king owned him; that in some miraculous manner he belonged, body
and soul, to somebody who rode on a horse--to somebody with epaulettes
on his shoulders and a tinsel crown upon his brainless head.
Our forefathers had been educated in that idea, and when they first
landed on American shores they believed it. They thought they belonged
to somebody, and that they must be loyal to some thief who could trace
his pedigree back to antiquity's most successful robber.
It took a long time for them to get that idea out of their heads and
hearts. They were three thousand miles away from the despotisms of
the old world, and every wave of the sea was an assistant to them. The
distance helped to disenchant their minds of that infamous belief, and
every mile between them and the pomp and glory of monarchy helped to put
republican ideas and thoughts into their minds. Besides that, when
they came to this country, when the savage was in the forest and three
thousand miles of waves on the other side, menaced by barbarians on
the one hand and famine on the other, they learned that a man who had
courage, a man who had thought, was as good as any other man in the
world, and they built up, as it were, in spite of themselves, little
republics. And the man that had the most nerve and heart was the best
man, whether he had any noble blood in his veins or not.
It has been a favorite idea with me that our forefathers were educated
by Nature, that they grew grand as the continent upon which they landed;
that the great rivers--the wide plains--the splendid lakes--the lonely
forests--the sublime mountains--that all these things stole into and
became a part of their being, and they grew great as the country in
which they lived. They began to hate the narrow, contracted views of
Europe. They were educated by their surroundings, and every little
colony had to be to a certain extent a republic. The kings of the old
world endeavored to parcel out this land to their favorites. But there
were too many Indians. There was too much courage required for them to
take and keep it, and so men had to come here who were dissatisfied with
the old country--who were dissatisfied with England, dissatisfied with
France, with Germany, with Ireland and Holland. The kings' favorites
stayed at home. Men came here for liberty, and on account of certain
principles they entertained and held dearer than life. And they were
willing to work, willing to fell the forests, to fight the savages,
willing to go through all the hardships, perils and dangers of a new
country, of a new land; and the consequence was that our country was
settled by brave and adventurous spirits, by men who had opinions of
their own and were willing to live in the wild forests for the sake of
expressing those opinions, even if they expressed them only to trees,
rocks, and savage men. The best blood of the old world came to the new.
When they first came over they did not have a great deal of political
philosophy, nor the best ideas of liberty. We might as well tell the
truth. When the Puritans first came, they were narrow. They did not
understand what liberty meant--what religious liberty, what political
liberty, was; but they found out in a few years. There was one feeling
among them that rises to their eternal honor like a white shaft to the
clouds--they were in favor of universal education. Wherever they went
they built schoolhouses, introduced books and ideas of literature. They
believed that every man should know how to read and how to write, and
should find out all that his capacity allowed him to comprehend. That is
the glory of the Puritan fathers.
They forgot in a little while what they had suffered, and they forgot
to apply the principle of universal liberty--of toleration. Some of
the colonies did not forget it, and I want to give credit where credit
should be given. The Catholics of Maryland were the first people on the
new continent to declare universal religious toleration. Let this be
remembered to their eternal honor. Let it be remembered to the disgrace
of the Protestant government of England, that it caused this grand law
to be repealed. And to the honor and credit of the Catholics of Maryland
let it be remembered that the moment they got back into power they
re-enacted the old law. The Baptists of Rhode Island also, led by Roger
Williams, were in favor of universal religious liberty.
No American should fail to honor Roger Williams. He was the first grand
advocate of the liberty of the soul. He was in favor of the eternal
divorce of church and state. So far as I know, he was the only man at
that time in this country who was in favor of real religious liberty.
While the Catholics of Maryland declared in favor of religious
_toleration_, they had no idea of religious liberty. They would not
allow anyone to call in question the doctrine of the Trinity, or the
inspiration of the Scriptures. They stood ready with branding-iron and
gallows to burn and choke out of man the idea that he had a right to
think and to express his thoughts.
So many religions met in our country--so many theories and dogmas came
in contact--so many follies, mistakes, and stupidities became acquainted
with each other, that religion began to fall somewhat into disrepute.
Besides this, the question of a new nation began to take precedence of
all others.
The people were too much interested in this world to quarrel about the
next. The preacher was lost in the patriot. The Bible was read to find
passages against kings.
Everybody was discussing the rights of man. Farmers and mechanics
suddenly became statesmen, and in every shop and cabin nearly every
question was asked and answered.
During these years of political excitement the interest in religion
abated to that degree that a common purpose animated men of all sects
and creeds.
At last our fathers became tired of being colonists--tired of writing
and reading and signing petitions, and presenting them on their bended
knees to an idiot king. They began to have an aspiration to form a new
nation, to be citizens of a new republic instead of subjects of an
old monarchy. They had the idea--the Puritans, the Catholics, the
Episcopalians, the Baptists, the Quakers, and a few Freethinkers, all
had the idea--that they would like to form a new nation.
Now, do not understand that all of our fathers were in favor of
independence. Do not understand that they were all like Jefferson; that
they were all like Adams or Lee; that they were all like Thomas Paine
or John Hancock. There were thousands and thousands of them who were
opposed to American independence. There were thousands and thousands who
said: "When you say men are created equal, it is a lie; when you say the
political power resides in the great body of the people, it is false."
Thousands and thousands of them said: "We prefer Great Britain." But
the men who were in favor of independence, the men who knew that a new
nation must be born, went on full of hope and courage, and nothing could
daunt or stop or stay the heroic, fearless few.
They met in Philadelphia; and the resolution was moved by Lee of
Virginia, that the colonies ought to be independent states, and ought to
dissolve their political connection with Great Britain.
They made up their minds that a new nation must be formed. All nations
had been, so to speak, the wards of some church. The religious idea as
to the source of power had been at the foundation of all governments,
and had been the bane and curse of man.
Happily for us, there was no church strong enough to dictate to the
rest. Fortunately for us, the colonists not only, but the colonies
differed widely in their religious views. There were the Puritans who
hated the Episcopalians, and Episcopalians who hated the Catholics,
and the Catholics who hated both, while the Quakers held them all in
contempt. There they were, of every sort, and color and kind, and how
was it that they came together? They had a common aspiration. They
wanted to form a new nation. More than that, most of them cordially
hated Great Britain; and they pledged each other to forget these
religious prejudices, for a time at least, and agreed that there should
be only one religion until they got through, and that was the religion
of patriotism. They solemnly agreed that the new nation should not
belong to any particular church, but that it should secure the rights of
all.
Our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded
in this world. Recollect that. The first secular government; the first
government that said every church has exactly the same rights and no
more; every religion has the same rights, and no more. In other words,
our fathers were the first men who had the sense, had the genius, to
know that no church should be allowed to have a sword; that it should be
allowed only to exert its moral influence.
You might as well have a government united by force with Art, or with
Poetry, or with Oratory, as with Religion. Religion should have the
influence upon mankind that its goodness, that its morality, its
justice, its charity, its reason, and its argument give it, and no more.
Religion should have the effect upon mankind that it necessarily has,
and no more. The religion that has to be supported by law is without
value, not only, but a fraud and curse. The religious argument that has
to be supported by a musket, is hardly worth making. A prayer that must
have a cannon behind it, better never be uttered. Forgiveness ought not
to go in partnership with shot and shell. Love need not carry knives and
revolvers.
So our fathers said: "We will form a secular government, and under the
flag with which we are going to enrich the air, we will allow every man
to worship God as he thinks best." They said: "Religion is an individual
thing between each man and his creator, and he can worship as he pleases
and as he desires." And why did they do this? The history of the world
warned them that the liberty of man was not safe in the clutch and grasp
of any church. They had read of and seen the thumbscrews, the racks, and
the dungeons of the Inquisition. They knew all about the hypocrisy of
the olden time. They knew that the church had stood side by side with
the throne; that the high priests were hypocrites, and that the kings
were robbers. They also knew that if they gave power to any church, it
would corrupt the best church in the world. And so they said that power
must not reside in a church, or in a sect, but power must be wherever
humanity is--in the great body of the people. And the officers and
servants of the people must be responsible to them. And so I say again,
as I said in the commencement, this is the wisest, the pro-foundest, the
bravest political document that ever was written and signed by man.
They turned, as I tell you, everything squarely about. They derived
all their authority from the people. They did away forever with the
theological idea of government.
And what more did they say? They said that whenever the rulers abused
this authority, this power, incapable of destruction, returned to the
people. How did they come to say this? I will tell you. They were pushed
into it. How? They felt that they were oppressed; and whenever a man
feels that he is the subject of injustice, his perception of right and
wrong is wonderfully quickened.
Nobody was ever in prison wrongfully who did not believe in the writ
of _habeas corpus_. Nobody ever suffered wrongfully without instantly
having ideas of justice.
And they began to inquire what rights the king of Great Britain had.
They began to search for the charter of his authority. They began to
investigate and dig down to the bed-rock upon which society must be
founded, and when they got down there, forced there, too, by their
oppressors, forced against their own prejudices and education, they
found at' the bottom of things, not lords, not nobles, not pulpits, not
thrones, but humanity and the rights of men.
And so they said, We are men; we are men. They found out they were men.
And the next thing they said, was, "We will be free men; we are weary of
being colonists; we are tired of being subjects; we are men; and these
colonies ought to be states; and these states ought to be a nation; and
that nation ought to drive the last British soldier into the sea." And
so they signed that brave Declaration of Independence.
I thank every one of them from the bottom of my heart for signing
that sublime declaration. I thank them for their courage--for their
patriotism--for their wisdom--for the splendid confidence in themselves
and in the human race. I thank them for what they were, and for what
we are--for what they did, and for what we have received--for what they
suffered, and for what we enjoy.
What would we have been if we had remained colonists and subjects? What
would we have been to-day? Nobodies--ready to get down on our knees and
crawl in the very dust at the sight of somebody that was supposed to
have in him some drop of blood that flowed in the veins of that mailed
marauder--that royal robber, William the Conqueror.
They signed that Declaration of Independence, although they knew that it
would produce a long, terrible, and bloody war. They looked forward and
saw poverty, deprivation, gloom, and death. But they also saw, on the
wrecked clouds of war, the beautiful bow of freedom.
These grand men were enthusiasts; and the world has been raised only
by enthusiasts. In every country there have been a few who have given
a national aspiration to the people. The enthusiasts of 1776 were the
builders and framers of this great and splendid Government; and they
were the men who saw, although others did not, the golden fringe of
the mantle of glory that will finally cover this world. They knew, they
felt, they believed that they would give a new constellation to
the political heavens--that they would make the Americans a grand
people--grand as the continent upon which they lived.
The war commenced. There was little money, and less credit. The new
nation had but few friends. To a great extent each soldier of freedom
had to clothe and feed himself. He was poor and pure, brave and good,
and so he went to the fields of death to fight for the rights of man.
What did the soldier leave when he went?
He left his wife and children.
Did he leave them in a beautiful home, surrounded by civilization, in
the repose of law, in the security of a great and powerful republic?
No. He left his wife and children on the edge, on the fringe of the
boundless forest, in which crouched and crept the red savage, who was at
that time the ally of the still more savage Briton. He left his wife to
defend herself, and he left the prattling babes to be defended by their
mother and by nature. The mother made the living; she planted the corn
and the potatoes, and hoed them in the sun, raised the children, and,
in the darkness of night, told them about their brave father and the
"sacred cause." She told them that in a little while the war would be
over and father would come back covered with honor and glory.
Think of the women, of the sweet children who listened for the footsteps
of the dead--who waited through the sad and desolate years for the dear
ones who never came.
The soldiers of 1776 did not march away with music and banners. They
went in silence, looked at and gazed after by eyes filled with tears.
They went to meet, not an equal, but a superior--to fight five times
their number--to make a desperate stand to stop the advance of the
enemy, and then, when their ammunition gave out, seek the protection of
rocks, of rivers, and of hills.
Let me say here: The greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear
defeat without losing heart. That army is the bravest that can be
whipped the greatest number of times and fight again.
Over the entire territory, so to speak, then settled by our forefathers,
they were driven again and again. Now and then they would meet the
English with something like equal numbers, and then the eagle of victory
would proudly perch upon the stripes and stars. And so they went on as
best they could, hoping and fighting until they came to the dark and
somber gloom of Valley Forge.
There were very few hearts then beneath that flag that did not begin to
think that the struggle was useless; that all the blood and treasure had
been shed and spent in vain. But there were some men gifted with
that wonderful prophecy that fulfills itself, and with that wonderful
magnetic power that makes heroes of everybody they come in contact with.
And so our fathers went through the gloom of that terrible time, and
still fought on. Brave men wrote grand words, cheering the despondent;
brave men did brave deeds, the rich man gave his wealth, the poor man
gave his life, until at last, by the victory of Yorktown, the old banner
won its place in the air, and became glorious forever.
Seven long years of war--fighting for what? For the principle that
all men are created equal--a truth that nobody ever disputed except a
scoundrel; nobody, nobody in the entire history of this world. No man
ever denied that truth who was not a rascal, and at heart a thief;
never, never, and never will. What else were they fighting for? Simply
that in America every man should have a right to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. Nobody ever denied that except a villain; never,
never. It has been denied by kings--they were thieves. It has been
denied by statesmen--they were liars. It has been denied by priests, by
clergymen, by cardinals, by bishops, and by popes--they were hypocrites.
What else were they fighting for? For the idea that all political power
is vested in the great body of the people. The great body of the people
make all the money; do all the work. They plow the land, cut down the
forests; they produce everything that is produced. Then who shall say
what shall be done with what is produced except the producer?
Is it the non-producing thief, sitting on a throne, surrounded by
vermin?
Those were the things they were fighting for; and that is all they
were fighting for. They fought to build up a new, a great nation; to
establish an asylum for the oppressed of the world everywhere. They knew
the history of this world. They knew the history of human slavery.
The history of civilization is the history of the slow and painful
enfranchisement of the human race. In the olden times the family was a
monarchy, the father being the monarch. The mother and children were the
veriest slaves. The will of the father was the supreme law. He had the
power of life and death. It took thousands of years to civilize this
father, thousands of years to make the condition of wife and mother and
child even tolerable. A few families constituted a tribe; the tribe
had a chief; the chief was a tyrant; a few tribes formed a nation; the
nation was governed by a king, who was also a tyrant. A strong nation
robbed, plundered, and took captive the weaker ones. This was the
commencement of human slavery.
It is not possible for the human imagination to conceive of the horrors
of slavery. It has left no possible crime uncommitted, no possible
cruelty unperpetrated. It has been practiced and defended by all nations
in some form. It has been upheld by all religions. It has been defended
by nearly every pulpit. From the profits derived from the slave trade
churches have been built, cathedrals reared and priests paid. Slavery
has been blessed by bishop, by cardinal, and by pope. It has received
the sanction of statesmen, of kings, and of queens. It has been defended
by the throne, the pulpit and the bench. Monarchs have shared in
the profits. Clergymen have taken their part of the spoils, reciting
passages of Scripture in its defence at the same time, and judges have
taken their portion in the name of equity and law.
Only a few years ago our ancestors were slaves. Only a few years ago
they passed with and belonged to the soil, like the coal under it and
rocks on it.
Only a few years ago they were treated like beasts of burden, worse far
than we treat our animals at the present day. Only a few years ago it
was a crime in England for a man to have a Bible in his house, a crime
for which men were hanged, and their bodies afterward burned. Only a few
years ago fathers could and did sell their children. Only a few
years ago our ancestors were not allowed to speak or write their
thoughts--that being a crime. Only a few years ago to be honest, at
least in the expression of your ideas, was a felony. To do right was a
capital offence; and in those days chains and whips were the incentives
to labor, and the preventives of thought. Honesty was a vagrant,
justice a fugitive, and liberty in chains. Only a few years ago men were
denounced because they doubted the inspiration of the Bible--because
they denied miracles, and laughed at the wonders recounted by the
ancient Jews.
Only a few years ago a man had to believe in the total depravity of the
human heart in order to be respectable. Only a few years ago, people
who thought God too good to punish in eternal flames an unbaptized child
were considered infamous.
As soon as our ancestors began to get free they began to enslave others.
With an inconsistency that defies explanation, they practiced upon
others the same outrages that had been perpetrated upon them. As soon
as white slavery began to be abolished, black slavery commenced. In this
infamous traffic nearly every nation of Europe embarked. Fortunes were
quickly realized; the avarice and cupidity of Europe were excited; all
ideas of justice were discarded; pity fled from the human breast; a
few good, brave men recited the horrors of the trade; avarice was deaf;
religion refused to hear; the trade went on; the governments of Europe
upheld it in the name of commerce--in the name of civilization and
religion.
Our fathers knew the history of caste. They knew that in the despotisms
of the Old World it was a disgrace to be useful. They knew that a
mechanic was esteemed as hardly the equal of a hound, and far below
a blooded horse. They knew that a nobleman held a son of labor in
contempt--that he had no rights the royal loafers were bound to respect.
The world has changed.
The other day there came shoemakers, potters, workers in wood and iron,
from Europe, and they were received in the city of New York as though
they had been princes. They had been sent by the great republic of
France to examine into the arts and manufactures of the great republic
of America. They looked a thousand times better to me than the Edward
Alberts and Albert Edwards--the royal vermin, that live on the body
politic. And I would think much more of our Government if it would fete
and feast them, instead of wining and dining the imbeciles of a royal
line.
Our fathers devoted their lives and fortunes to the grand work of
founding a government for the protection of the rights of man. The
theological idea as to the source of political power had poisoned the
web and woof of every government in the world, and our fathers banished
it from this continent forever.
What we want to-day is what our fathers wrote down. They did not attain
to their ideal; we approach it nearer, but have not reached it yet. We
want, not only the independence of a State, not only the independence of
a nation, but something far more glorious--the absolute independence of
the individual. That is what we want. I want it so that I, one of the
children of Nature, can stand on an equality with the rest; that I can
say this is my air, my sunshine, my earth, and I have a right to live,
and hope, and aspire, and labor, and enjoy the fruit of that labor, as
much as any individual or any nation on the face of the globe.
We want every American to make to-day, on this hundredth anniversary, a
declaration of individual independence. Let each man enjoy his liberty
to the utmost--enjoy all he can; but be sure it is not at the expense
of another. The French Convention gave the best definition of liberty
I have ever read: "The liberty of one citizen ceases only where the
liberty of another citizen commences." I know of no better definition. I
ask you to-day to make a declaration of individual independence. And
if you are independent be just. Allow everybody else to make his
declaration of individual independence. Allow your wife, allow your
husband, allow your children to make theirs. Let everybody be absolutely
free and independent, knowing only the sacred obligations of honesty and
affection. Let us be independent of party, independent of everybody and
everything except our own consciences and our own brains. Do not belong
to any clique. Have the clear title-deeds in fee simple to yourselves,
without any mortgage on the premises to anybody in the world.
It is a grand thing to be the owner of yourself. It is a grand thing to
protect the rights of others. It is a sublime thing to be free and just.
Only a few days ago I stood in Independence Hall--in that little room
where was signed the immortal paper. A little room, like any other;
and it did not seem possible that from that room went forth ideas,
like cherubim and seraphim, spreading their wings over a continent, and
touching, as with holy fire, the hearts of men.
In a few moments I was in the park, where are gathered the
accomplishments of a century. Our fathers never dreamed of the things I
saw. There were hundreds of locomotives, with their nerves of steel and
breath of flame--every kind of machine, with whirling wheels and curious
cogs and cranks, and the myriad thoughts of men that have been wrought
in iron, brass and steel. And going out from one little building were
wires in the air, stretching to every civilized nation, and they could
send a shining messenger in a moment to any part of the world, and it
would go sweeping under the waves of the sea with thoughts and words
within its glowing heart. I saw all that had been achieved by this
nation, and I wished that the signers of the Declaration--the soldiers
of the Revolution--could see what a century of freedom has produced.
I wished they could see the fields we cultivate--the rivers we
navigate--the railroads running over the Alleghanies, far into what was
then the unknown forest--on over the broad prairies--on over the vast
plains--away over the mountains of the West, to the Golden Gate of the
Pacific. All this is the result of a hundred years of freedom.
Are you not more than glad that in 1776 was announced the sublime
principle that political power resides with the people? That our fathers
then made up their minds nevermore to be colonists and subjects, but
that they would be free and independent citizens of America?
I will not name any of the grand men who fought for liberty. All should
be named, or none. I feel that the unknown soldier who was shot down
without even his name being remembered--who was included only in a
report of "a hundred killed," or "a hundred missing," nobody knowing
even the number that attached to his august corpse--is entitled to as
deep and heartfelt thanks as the titled leader who fell at the head of
the host.
Standing here amid the sacred memories of the first, on the golden
threshold of the second, I ask, Will the second century be as grand
as the first? I believe it will, because we are growing more and more
humane. I believe there is more human kindness, more real, sweet human
sympathy, a greater desire to help one another, in the United States,
than in all the world besides.
We must progress. We are just at the commencement of invention. The
steam engine--the telegraph--these are but the toys with which science
has been amused. Wait; there will be grander things, there will be wider
and higher culture--a grander standard of character, of literature and
art.
We have now half as many millions of people as we have years, and many
of us will live until a hundred millions stand beneath the flag. We are
getting more real solid sense. The schoolhouse is the finest building in
the village. We are writing and reading more books; we are painting
and buying more pictures; we are struggling more and more to get at
the philosophy of life, of things--trying more and more to answer
the questions of the eternal Sphinx. We are looking in every
direction--investigating; in short, we are thinking and working. Besides
all this, I believe the people are nearer honest than ever before. A few
years ago we were willing to live upon the labor of four million slaves.
Was that honest? At last, we have a national conscience. At last, we
have carried out the Declaration of Independence. Our fathers wrote
it--we have accomplished it. The black man was a slave--we made him a
citizen. We found four million human beings in manacles, and now the
hands of a race are held up in the free air without a chain.
I have had the supreme pleasure of seeing a man--once a slave--sitting
in the seat of his former master in the Congress of the United States.
I have had that pleasure, and when I saw it my eyes were filled
with tears. I felt that we had carried, out the Declaration of
Independence--that we had given reality to it, and breathed the breath
of life into its every word. I felt that our flag would float over and
protect the colored man and his little children, standing straight in
the sun, just the same as though he were white and worth a million.
I would protect him more, because the rich white man could protect
himself.
All who stand beneath our banner are free. Ours is the only flag that
has in reality written upon it: Liberty, Fraternity, Equality--the three
grandest words in all the languages of men.
Liberty: Give to every man the fruit of his own labor--the labor of his
hands and of his brain.
Fraternity: Every man in the right is my brother.
Equality: The rights of all are equal: Justice, poised and balanced in
eternal calm, will shake from the golden scales in which are weighed the
acts of men, the very dust of prejudice and caste: No race, no color, no
previous condition, can change the rights of men.
The Declaration of Independence has at last been carried out in letter
and in spirit.
The second century will be grander than the first.
Fifty millions of people are celebrating this day. To-day, the black man
looks upon his child and says: The avenues to distinction are open to
you--upon your brow may fall the civic wreath--this day belongs to you.
We are celebrating the courage and wisdom of our fathers, and the glad
shout of a free people the anthem of a grand nation, commencing at the
Atlantic, is following the sun to the Pacific, across a continent of
happy homes.
We are a great people. Three millions have increased to fifty--thirteen
States to thirty-eight. We have better homes, better clothes, better
food and more of it, and more of the conveniences of life, than any
other people upon the globe.
The farmers of our country live better than did the kings and princes
two hundred years ago--and they have twice as much sense and heart.
Liberty and labor have given us all. I want every person here to believe
in the dignity of labor--to know that the respectable man is the useful
man--the man who produces or helps others to produce something of value,
whether thought of the brain or work of the hand.
I want you to go away with an eternal hatred in your breast of
injustice, of aristocracy, of caste, of the idea that one man has more
rights than another because he has better clothes, more land, more
money, because he owns a railroad, or is famous and in high position.
Remember that all men have equal rights. Remember that the man who acts
best his part--who loves his friends the best--is most willing to
help others--truest to the discharge of obligation--who has the best
heart--the most feeling--the deepest sympathies--and who freely gives
to others the rights that he claims for himself is the best man. I am
willing to swear to this.
What has made this country? I say again, liberty and labor. What would
we be without labor? I want every farmer when plowing the rustling corn
of June--while mowing in the perfumed fields--to feel that he is
adding to the wealth and glory of the United States. I want every
mechanic--every man of toil, to know and feel that he is keeping the
cars running, the telegraph wires in the air; that he is making the
statues and painting the pictures; that he is writing and printing the
books; that he is helping to fill the world with honor, with happiness,
with love and law.
Our country is founded upon the dignity of labor--upon the equality
of man. Ours is the first real Republic in the history of the world.
Beneath our flag the people are free. We have retired the gods from
politics. We have found that man is the only source of political
power, and that the governed should govern. We have disfranchised the
aristocrats of the air and have given one country to mankind.