Our American Holidays
INDEPENDENCE DAY
Our American Holidays
INDEPENDENCE
DAY
ITS CELEBRATION, SPIRIT, AND SIGNIFICANCE
AS RELATED IN PROSE AND VERSE
EDITED BY
ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
_Published, February, 1912_
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 7
NOTE 9
INTRODUCTION 11
I
CELEBRATION
THE GREAT AMERICAN HOLIDAY _Anonymous_ 21
THE NATION’S BIRTHDAY _Mary E. Vandyne_ 22
HOW THE FOURTH OF JULY SHOULD BE CELEBRATED _Julia Ward Howe_ 24
II
SPIRIT AND SIGNIFICANCE
ENGLAND AND AMERICA _James Bryce_ 39
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE NATION _Daniel Webster_ 40
THE FOURTH OF JULY _Charles Leonard Moore_ 42
LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS _Anonymous_ 42
ENGLAND AND THE FOURTH OF JULY _W. T. Stead_ 46
SOME EARLY INDEPENDENCE DAY ADDRESSES 47
THE FOURTH OF JULY _Charles Sprague_ 53
OUR NATIONAL ANNIVERSARY _A. H. Rice_ 54
AMERICA’S NATAL DAY _James Gillespie Blaine_ 55
CRISES OF NATIONS _Dr. Foss_ 56
THE FOURTH OF JULY IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY _Phillips Brooks_ 56
III
BEFORE THE DAWN OF INDEPENDENCE
AMERICA RESENTS BRITISH DICTATION _Henry B. Carrington_ 61
SPEECH OF JAMES OTIS 62
INDEPENDENCE A SOLEMN DUTY 64
AN APPEAL FOR AMERICA _William Pitt_ 66
CONCILIATION OR WAR 69
“WAR IS ACTUALLY BEGUN” _Patrick Henry_ 72
EMANCIPATION FROM BRITISH DEPENDENCE _Philip Freneau_ 76
IV
THE DECLARATION
THE ORIGIN OF THE DECLARATION _Sydney George Fisher_ 81
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE _John D. Long_ 101
THE SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION _George Lippard_ 104
SUPPOSED SPEECH OF JOHN ADAMS _Daniel Webster_ 107
THE LIBERTY BELL _J. T. Headley_ 111
INDEPENDENCE BELL, PHILADELPHIA _Anonymous_ 112
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 115
INDEPENDENCE EXPLAINED _Samuel Adams_ 121
THE DIGNITY OF OUR NATION’S FOUNDERS _William T. Evarts_ 123
THE CHARACTER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE _George Bancroft_ 125
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE _Henry T. Randall_ 126
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE _John Quincy Adams_ 127
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE _Tudor Jenks_ 128
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN THE LIGHT
OF MODERN CRITICISM _Moses Coit Tyler_ 132
V
THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE
THE PRINCIPLES OF THE REVOLUTION 157
THE SONG OF THE CANNON _Sam Walter Foss_ 158
PAUL REVERE’S RIDE _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_ 160
HYMN _Ralph Waldo Emerson_ 164
A SONG FOR LEXINGTON _Robert Kelly Weeks_ 165
THE REVOLUTIONARY ALARM _George Bancroft_ 166
THE VOLUNTEER _Elbridge Jefferson Cutler_ 168
TICONDEROGA _V. B. Wilson_ 169
WARREN’S ADDRESS _John Pierpont_ 171
“THE LONELY BUGLE GRIEVES” _Grenville Mellen_ 172
THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL 173
THE MARYLAND BATTALION _John Williamson Palmer_ 175
THE BATTLE OF TRENTON _Anonymous_ 177
COLUMBIA _Timothy Dwight_ 178
THE FIGHTING PARSON _Henry Ames Blood_ 180
THE SARATOGA LESSON _George William Curtis_ 184
THE SURRENDER OF BURGOYNE _James Watts De Peyster_ 187
THE SARATOGA MONUMENT BEGUN _Horatio Seymour_ 187
MOLLY MAGUIRE AT MONMOUTH _William Collins_ 190
THE SOUTH IN THE REVOLUTION _Robert Young Hayne_ 193
THE SONG OF MARION’S MEN _William Cullen Bryant_ 195
OUR COUNTRY SAVED _James Russell Lowell_ 197
NEW ENGLAND AND VIRGINIA _Robert Charles Winthrop_ 199
VI
SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY
AMERICA _S. F. Smith_ 203
THE REPUBLIC _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_ 205
THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM _William Cullen Bryant_ 206
AMERICA _William Cullen Bryant_ 208
ODE _Ralph Waldo Emerson_ 210
AMERICA FIRST _Anonymous_ 212
LIBERTY FOR ALL _William Lloyd Garrison_ 213
HYMN _Anonymous_ 214
THE DAWNING FUTURE _William Preston Johnson_ 216
LIBERTY 216
FREEDOM 217
A RHAPSODY _Cassius Marcellus Clay_ 219
COLUMBIA _Frederick Lawrence Knowles_ 221
A RENAISSANCE OF PATRIOTISM _George J. Manson_ 222
CENTENNIAL POEMS _John Greenleaf Whittier_ 230
WELCOME TO THE NATION _Oliver Wendell Holmes_ 232
LIBERTY’S LATEST DAUGHTER _Bayard Taylor_ 233
“SCUM OF THE EARTH” _Robert Haven Schauffler_ 234
LIBERTY AND UNION ONE AND INSEPARABLE _Daniel Webster_ 238
ADDRESS TO LIBERTY _William Cowper_ 240
THE TORCH OF LIBERTY _Thomas Moore_ 241
HOROLOGE OF LIBERTY _Anonymous_ 242
THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC _George Bancroft_ 243
A NEW NATIONAL HYMN _Francis Marion Crawford_ 244
VII
FICTION
JIM’S AUNT _Frances Bent Dillingham_ 249
VIII
THE NEW FOURTH
OUR BARBAROUS FOURTH _Mrs. Isaac L. Rice_ 265
A SAFE AND SANE FOURTH OF JULY _Henry Litchfield West_ 285
THE NEW INDEPENDENCE DAY
_Henry B. F. MacFarland and Richard B. Watrous_ 296
NEW FOURTHS FOR OLD _Mrs. Isaac L. Rice_ 299
AMERICANIZING THE FOURTH _Robert Haven Schauffler_ 307
PREFACE
This book is an anthology of American Independence: of the document that
announced its birth; of the struggle that established it in life; and of
the patriotism that was to it both sire and son. It aims to present a
clear review of the origin, spirit and significance of Independence Day
and of its celebration both by the now discredited methods of brutal,
meaningless noise and indiscriminate carnage, which disgraced the larger
part of the previous century, and by the recent methods of sane and safe,
reverent and meaningful celebration.
The volume contains a selection of the best prose and verse that bears
in any way on our nation’s birthday; and closes with many constructive
suggestions for the celebration of our new, more beautiful and more
patriotic Fourth.
NOTE
Thanks are due to Miss Jessie Welles, superintendent of circulation in
the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, for the suggestion which originated
“Our American Holidays.” And gratitude is also expressed to the
Misses Tobey, to Miss Helen Miles and all the other librarians of the
Bloomingdale Branch Library in New York who have generously given the
editor such invaluable aid in the preparation of these volumes.
The Editor also wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Houghton,
Mifflin & Company; The Century Co.; J. B. Lippincott & Co.; Bobbs-Merrill
Co., and others who have very kindly granted permission to reprint
selections from works bearing their copyright.
ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER.
INTRODUCTION
When, on the fourth day of each July, Americans keep the birthday of the
nation we celebrate as our greatest secular holiday, the one which has
the honor of being sanctioned by statute in every state of the Union.
From times as early as any living memory can reach, this anniversary
has been observed in much the same fashion: by spread-eagle oratory, by
unlimited and quite meaningless noise, and hospitals filled with the
wounded and dying. It is curious that the festival should have gone on
in this monotonous manner decade after decade until nearly the middle of
its second century of life, and then suddenly should have encountered
a revolution far more abrupt than the early, heroic one which it
commemorates.
For our attitude toward the Fourth is undergoing swift revolution as
regards our understanding both of the causes that underlay American
independence, of the real spirit in which the Declaration was penned, and
of the reasons why July fourth rather than some other day was fixed upon.
Finally, the swiftest Fourth of July revolution of all is taking place in
the way we celebrate it.
Until quite recently all historians have, consciously or unconsciously,
been consistent in misrepresenting the War of Seventy-Six and the events
leading thereto. And we owe no small debt of gratitude to writers like
Mr. Owen Wister and Mr. Sydney George Fisher for telling us the truth.
Mr. Wister writes[1] of the Revolution that while “As a war, its real
military aspect is slowly emerging from the myth of uninterrupted
patriotism and glory, universally taught to school children, its
political hue is still thickly painted and varnished over by our writers.
“How many Americans know, for instance, that England was at first
extremely lenient to us? fought us (until 1778) with one hand in a
glove, and an olive branch in the other? had any wish rather than
to crush us; had no wish save to argue us back into the fold, and
enforce argument with an occasional victory not followed up?... For any
American historian to speak the truth on these matters is a very recent
phenomenon, their common design having been to leave out any facts which
spoil the political picture of the Revolution they chose to paint for
our edification: a ferocious, blood-shot tyrant on the one side, and
on the other a compact band of ‘Fathers,’ down-trodden and martyred,
yet with impeccable linen and bland legs. A wrong conception even of
the Declaration of Independence as Jefferson’s original invention still
prevails; Jefferson merely drafted the document, expressing ideas well
established in the contemporary air. Let us suppose that some leader of
our own time were to write: ‘Three dangers to-day threaten the United
States, any one of which could be fatal: unscrupulous capital, destroying
man’s liberty to compete; unscrupulous Labor, destroying man’s liberty to
work; and undesirable Immigration, in which four years of naturalization
are not going to counteract four hundred years of heredity. Unless the
people check all of these, American liberty will become extinct.’ If
some one were to write a new Declaration of Independence, containing such
sentences, he could not claim originality for them; he would be merely
stating ideas that are among us everywhere. This is what Jefferson did,
writing his sentences loosely, because the ideas they expressed were so
familiar as to render exact definitions needless.”
Mr. Wister deserves gratitude for giving us these unpalatable truths
in such palatable form; but he should have far more gratitude for
introducing to a wide body of readers his chief source of information,
the historian Mr. Sydney George Fisher, one of whose most valuable
chapters has fortunately been secured for reproduction in the body of
this book. Mr. Fisher writes:[2]
“I cannot feel satisfied with any description of the Revolution which
treats the desire for independence as a sudden thought, and not a long
growth and development, or which assumes that every detail of the conduct
of the British government was absurdly stupid, even from its own point of
view, and that the loyalists were few in numbers and their arguments not
worth considering....
“The historians seem to have assumed that we do not want to know about
that controversy” (over Gen. Howe’s lenient methods), “or that it will
be better for us not to know about it. They have assumed that it will
be better for Americans to think that independence was a sudden and
deplorable necessity and not a desire of long and ardent growth and
cautiously planned intention. They have assumed that we want to think of
England as having lost the colonies by failure to be conciliatory, and
that the Revolution was a one-sided, smooth affair, without any of the
difficulties or terrors of a rebellion or a great upheaval of settled
opinion.”
There can be small doubt that when this true inner history of our
independence becomes generally known it will do much to mitigate the
blind, provincial spread-eagleism that still clings to even our safest
and sanest celebrations of the Fourth and that has so ably thwarted every
motion toward fraternal intimacy between the two great branches of the
Anglo-Saxon race. The following[3] paragraph is fairly typical of the
British attitude toward the celebration of our national birthday.
“Where a country or a government has been baffled in its efforts
to attain or preserve a hated rule over another people, it must be
content to see its failure made the subject of never-ending triumph and
exultation. The joy attached to the sense of escape or emancipation tends
to perpetuate itself by periodical celebrations, in which it is not
likely that the motives of the other party, or the general justice of the
case, will be very carefully considered or allowed for. We may doubt if
it be morally expedient thus to keep alive the memory of facts which as
certainly infer mortification to one party as they do glorification to
another: but we must all admit that it is only natural, and in a measure
to be expected.”
When we come to view the facts as they are, to realize of what shocking
sportsmanship our own one-sided view of independence convicts us, we
shall have removed one of the chief obstacles to Anglo-Saxon solidarity.
But it will be necessary first to learn something about the day we
celebrate. How many, for instance, even know that July fourth was fixed
upon as a compromise date between two other rival claimants?
Walsh writes:[4]
“It may not be generally known that no less than three dates might
reasonably compete for designation as the natal day of American
Independence and for the honors of the anniversary of that event.
“On the second of July, 1776, was adopted the resolution of independence,
the sufficient legislative act; and it was this day that Mr. Adams
designated as the anniversary in the oft-quoted letter written on his
desk at the time, prophesying its future celebration, by bells, bonfires,
cannonades, etc. On the fourth of July occurred the Declaration of
Independence. On the second of August following took place the ceremony
of signature, which has furnished to the popular imagination the common
pictorial and dramatic conceptions of the event.
“The history connecting these three dates may be intelligently told in
a brief space. On the fifteenth of May, 1776, a convention in Virginia
had instructed its delegates in the General Congress ‘to propose to
that body to declare the United Colonies free and independent States,
absolved from all allegiance to or dependence on the Crown or Parliament
of Great Britain, and that they give the assent of this Colony to such
declaration, and to whatever measures may be thought proper and necessary
by the Congress for forming foreign alliances and a confederation of
the Colonies.’ The motion thus ordered was on the seventh of June made
in Congress by Richard Henry Lee, as the oldest member of the Virginia
delegation. It was to the effect that ‘these United Colonies are,
and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are
absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all political
connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought
to be, totally dissolved.’ The resolution was slightly debated for two
or three days, but from considerations of prudence or expediency the
discussion was intermitted. As texts for the action of Congress there
were the resolution referred to, and the more formal, or at least more
lengthy, document which the committee of five—Jefferson, Adams, Franklin,
Sherman, and Livingston—had been instructed on the eleventh of June to
prepare. This document was draughted by Jefferson and presented under the
title of ‘A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of
America in General Congress assembled.’
“On the first of July there was again called up in Congress the
resolution proposed by Mr. Lee. On the second of July it passed. Two days
later (the fourth of July) was adopted, after various amendments, the
‘Declaration’ from Mr. Jefferson’s pen. The document was authenticated,
like the other papers of the Congress, by the signature of the president
and the secretary, and, in addition, was signed by the members _present_,
with the exception of Mr. Dickinson of Pennsylvania, who, as Mr.
Jefferson has testified, ‘refused to sign it.’
“But it did not then bear the names of the members of Congress as they
finally appeared on it. A number of these still opposed it, and had voted
against it; it was passed unanimously only as regarded states. Thus, a
majority of the Pennsylvania delegation had persistently opposed it,
and it was only the absence of two of their delegates on the final vote
that left a majority for this state in its favor. Some days after the
Declaration had thus passed, and had been proclaimed at the head of the
army, it was ordered by Congress that it be engrossed on parchment and
signed by every member; and it was not until the second of August that
these signatures were made, and the matter concluded by this peculiar and
august ceremony of personal pledges in the autographs of the members.
It is this copy or form of the Declaration which has, in fact, been
preserved as the original: the first signed paper does not exist, and was
probably destroyed as incomplete.
“If the natal day of American Independence is to be derived from the
ceremony of these later signatures, and the real date of what has been
preserved as the legal original of the Declaration, then it would be
the second of August. If derived from the substantial, legal _act_ of
separation from the British Crown, which was contained rather in the
resolution of Congress than in its Declaration of Independence, it would
be the second of July. But common consent has determined to date the
great anniversary from the apparently subordinate event of the passage of
the Declaration, and thus celebrates the Fourth of July as the birthday
of the nation.”
Finally, after making ourselves reasonably intelligent as to the origin,
spirit and true significance of Independence Day it behooves us as true
Americans to enter the splendid new movement which is endeavoring
to make the Fourth over from a day of shallow jingoism and unmeaning
brutality and carnage into a day of initiation into the meaning of true
citizenship and a festival of deep and genuine and beautiful patriotism.
R. H. S.
INDEPENDENCE DAY
I
CELEBRATION
THE GREAT AMERICAN HOLIDAY
ANONYMOUS
Among all the holidays of the year, one stands out as preëminently
American; one appeals especially to that sentiment of patriotism and
national pride which glows in every loyal American heart. Independence
Day—the Fourth of July—is observed in every State in the Union as our
distinctive national holiday; and rightly so, for the event which it
celebrates is by far the most important in American history—an event no
less, indeed, than the birth of the nation.
Independence Day celebrates the signing, on the Fourth of July, 1776, of
the paper which declared this country forever free from British rule. It
had been under consideration for some time by the Continental Congress,
assembled at Philadelphia, and final action was finally taken on July
4. From that time forward, the American colonists were no longer rebels
in arms against their country, but a free people fighting for their
independence.
That the Declaration of Independence was mainly the work of Thomas
Jefferson has been established beyond reasonable doubt; and it stands
to-day one of the most remarkable state papers in the history of the
world.
At the time of the passage of the act, John Adams wrote to his wife
a letter which has become historic. “I am apt to believe,” he wrote,
“that this day will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the
great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of
deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be
solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells,
bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other,
from this time forward forevermore.”
Bonfires and guns there have been without limit; and the deaths that have
resulted from these celebrations would form no inconsiderable fraction
of those lost during the Revolution. For years, the celebration of this
great holiday has consisted mainly of meaningless noise; but there is a
steadily growing sentiment in favor of a more worthy observance of the
day, as a time when every loyal American should rejoice in the welfare
of his country, and recall with pride the manner in which the Nation was
established.
THE NATION’S BIRTHDAY
BY MARY E. VANDYNE
Ring out the joy bells! Once again,
With waving flags and rolling drums,
We greet the Nation’s Birthday, when,
In glorious majesty, it comes.
Ah, day of days! Alone it stands,
While, like a halo round it cast,
The radiant work of patriot hands,
Shines the bright record of the past.
Among the nations of the earth,
What land hath story like our own?
No thought of conquest marked her birth;
No greed of power was ever shown
By those who crossed the ocean wild,
That they might plant upon her sod
A home for Peace and Virtue mild,
And altars rear to Freedom’s God.
How grand the thought that bade them roam!
Those pilgrim bands, by Faith inspired—
That bade them leave their cherished home,
And, with the martyr’s spirit fired,
Guide their frail vessels o’er the main
Upon the glorious mission bound
On alien soil a grave to gain,
Or else a free born nation found.
What land has heroes like to ours?
Their names are as the lightning’s gleams,
When, on the darkling cloud that lowers,
In blinding majesty it streams.
Great Washington, the man of faith,
Who conquered doubt with patient might;
Warren and Putnam, true till death,
The “Swamp Fox,” eager for the fight.
See Major Molly’s woman hand
Drive home the murderous cannon ball;
How bravely Lydia Darrach planned,
For home and country risking all.
A glorious list, and without end;
Forgotten were both sex and age;
Their names in radiant luster blend,
And shine like stars on history’s page.
Like stars to light the firmament,
And show the world what men may do
Who, as God’s messengers, are sent
And to their mission still are true.
No end had they to seek or gain;
Their work was there before their sight;
There lay their duty, stern and plain,
To dare and suffer for the right.
The right that conquered, and whose power
Is shown in our broad land to-day;
Shown in this bright and prosperous hour,
When peace and plenty gild our way;
Shown in the glorious song that swells
The hearts of men from South to North,
And in its rapturous accents tell
The story of our glorious Fourth.
HOW THE FOURTH OF JULY SHOULD BE CELEBRATED
BY JULIA WARD HOWE
I have been invited to present some hints as to the proper observance of
our great national holiday, the Fourth of July, and the false education
implied by warlike celebrations in a nation whose corner stone is peace
and whose freedom is a standing protest against old-world militarism.
The topic carries me back in thought to days of childhood, when, in
my native city of New York, the endless crackling of torpedoes, the
explosion of firecrackers and the booming of cannon, made the day one of
joyous confusion and fatigue, culminating in a distant view of the city
fireworks sent up from Castle Garden. It then seemed to be a day wholly
devoted to boyish pleasure and mischief, sure to be followed by reports
of hairbreadth escapes and injuries more or less serious, sometimes even
fatal. The day was one of terror to parents, who, while deeming it unwise
to interdict to their sons the enjoyment of gunpowder, dreaded to see
them maimed or disfigured for life by some unlooked-for accident. It was
not uncommon then, nor is it now, to read of some sudden death, some
irretrievable blindness or other injury caused by the explosion of a toy
cannon or the misadventure of some fireworks on “the Fourth,” as the day
has come to be called.
These were tragical events truly, but they appear less real to me in
remembrance than do the laughing faces of my young brothers who were
allowed to arrange a small table for their greater convenience on the
pavement of ancient Bond Street, a very quiet byway in those days. From
this spot went forth a perpetual popping and fizzing, varied by the
occasional thud of a double-headed firecracker. Shouts of merriment
followed these explosions. The girls within doors enjoyed the fracas
from the open windows, and in the evening our good elders brought forth
a store of Roman candles, blue lights, and rockets. I remember a year,
early in the thirties, in which good Gideon Lee, a democratic Mayor of
New York, issued an edict prohibitive of all home fireworks. Just as we
had settled ourselves in the determination to regard him thenceforth as
our natural enemy, the old gentleman’s heart failed him, and, living next
door to us, he called to say that he would make a few exceptions to the
rule for the day, and that we should count among these.
Removing to Boston some ten years later, I found the night of the third
of July rendered almost sleepless by the shrill gamut of gunpowder
discharges. The ringing of bells and the booming of cannon destroyed the
last chance of an early morning nap, and in self-defense most people left
their beds and went forth to see what could be seen. This was sometimes
a mock procession of the Antiques and Horribles, so called in parody of
the Ancient and Honorable Artillery, so well known in and about Boston.
Or, one might join the throng on the Common, where a brass band performed
popular airs, American and Irish-American. I do indeed recall certain
notable performances connected with the usual observance of the National
Festival. I was a dweller in Boston when Charles Sumner, then chiefly
known as a rising lawyer and incipient philanthropist, was appointed to
deliver the Fourth of July oration, and chose for his theme the true
grandeur of nations. This grandeur he found entirely in the conquests of
peace as opposed to the popular worship of military renown. His audience,
composed in part of men in soldier’s garb, were but little in sympathy
with his views, and I remember the performance as having called forth
more irritation than approbation.
These prophetic glimpses of good which seem far from the practical
questions of the time do visit earnest souls in this way, like some ray
of light from an undiscovered star. The same train of thought, at about
the same time, took shape in Mr. Longfellow’s fine poem on the Arsenal
in Springfield. It may be remembered that the poet was Mr. Sumner’s
most intimate friend. While the two men held the same views regarding
the great questions of the time, Mr. Longfellow’s _bonhomie_ rendered
him very inapt to give offense, while Sumner seemed destined to arouse
violent opposition in those from whom he differed.
I remember another Fourth of July at which Edward Everett’s measured
rhetoric and silver voice held the attention of a numerous assemblage.
Mr. Everett was certainly master of the art of graceful oratory, and
was always heard with appreciation, even by those who felt little
satisfaction in his public career.
One of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s finest poems was written for the celebration
of the Fourth in his own town of Concord. The two opening lines of this
dwell always in my memory:
“Oh! tenderly the haughty Day
Fills his blue urn with fire.”
But, beautiful as they are, the solemn lesson of the poet exceeds them in
interest.
“United States! the Ages plead,
Present and Past in under-song;
Go, put your creed into your deed,
Nor speak with double tongue.
“Be just at home, then write your scroll
Of honor o’er the sea,
And bid the broad Atlantic roll
A ferry of the Free.”
Here is a thought picture which we may love to dwell upon. Emerson, the
descendant of the Puritans, himself a transfigured Puritan, reading these
stanzas of his, whose fire is tempered by the weight of thought, in that
old town of Concord, where, in his own phrase:
“—the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.”
A fiercer fight was then before us, whose issue is simply prefigured in
the words: “_Be just at home_.” Surely, we might take this saying for a
national motto, its reminder still needed, though the slave is freed from
the whip and fetter. Of the day on which our Independence was declared
John Adams said:
“It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of
devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be celebrated with pomp and parade,
with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations,
from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward
forevermore.”
These words show how comprehensive was the view which the old statesman
took of a Nation’s holiday. He desired that all classes and all ages
should participate in the joy expressed. The time which has elapsed since
his memorable utterance has brought nothing to diminish this joy. It has
however brought into being a new society for which “pomp and parade,
bells, guns and bonfires” are less available for good than pleasures of
a more elevated character. We now desire a celebration which shall speak
less to the bodily sense and more to the inner sense. This is because
the historic development of the race goes ever forward. John Adams would
have had both sober and wild rejoicing over the birth of a new state,
representing a new order of things. We stand face to face with the
question: How shall we maintain our deliverance from old-world trammels?
This freedom which was declared in 1776, what are its conditions, what
its true uses?
History is full of paradoxes whose meaning does not lie upon the surface
of what we see. Many of these recall the riddle of Samson: “Out of the
eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.”
Even so, the things that make for peace often come out of contests full
of violence and bloodshed, while the elements of anarchy ripen best
in the submission enforced by autocratic despotism, the ominous quiet
which is sure to be broken by some terrific social cataclysm. In the
first instance, which alone concerns our theme, we must remember that
the bloodshed came, not of the peaceable principles of eternal justice,
but of the effort on the part of tyrants to gainsay and oppose these.
It follows from this that in commemorating the events which have had
most to do with the liberation of mankind from the yoke of despotism
and superstition, we must keep in view these underlying truths which in
themselves involve no violence, but the vindication of which may involve
great sacrifices of devoted lives.
The fact that our heroes fought for freedom against almost hopeless
odds should be brought to mind, and their names should be hallowed in
perpetual remembrance. But, if we would crown their conquest, we must
give more attention to the good for which they died than to the mere
circumstance of their death. The ordinary procedure of mankind is quite
the opposite of this. They are proud of the military success, careless
of the civic and ethical gain. Even the Christian church accentuates
too much the death of its Founder, is too little concerned with the
truth for which he really gave his life. A Lent of prayer and fasting,
with dramatic repetition of the betrayal and crucifixion of the Blessed
One, may merely bring with it suggestions of devotion and gratitude.
But far more important would be a Lent of study of the deep meaning of
his words and works. It makes one sick at heart to think of the formal
rehearsal of great events by those who have no understanding of their
true significance, and can therefore claim but a small part in their real
benefit.
The parallelisms too of history are very instructive. In the confusions
and difficulties of our own time it is useful for us to learn that men
in other times have had similar problems to solve, and have found their
solutions. It is helpful for us to know that our pure and blameless
Washington was, in his day, the subject of malignant slander and
mischievous cabal. Our own best public men are liable to the grossest
misinterpretations of their utterances and of their measures. Unworthy
demagogues to-day will present very dangerous evils in a light attractive
to the multitude. This has always been so. No man marches to victory
over a bed of roses. The roses crown his perseverances, but the thorns
lacerate his bleeding feet. But, with these sad recollections, we must
keep in sight the immortal hope sung by the poets, reasoned out by the
philosophers, and acted out by earth’s saints and heroes, the hope which
is justified by the great progress of the ages, the elevation of the
natural man into the dignity of the spiritual man.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who saw one of the great Italian festivals in
which the poet Dante was especially commemorated, saw also the pressing
need of wise counsel and brave action throughout the struggling country,
and asks what will become of the new Italy if her young men shall “stand
still strewing violets all the time?” We may ask too what will become
of our new Republic if the hours of its highest festival continue to be
occupied with fustian oratory, gunpowder enthusiasm, and the exercise of
every poor and mean trade, the sale of toys, bad food, and worse liquor?
Now, I would by no means abridge the childish pleasure of the day, if
I could do so. We must allow children the explosion of animal spirits,
and they will delight, as some grown-up people will, in much that is
irrational. But the day itself is too important to be made one of mere
noise and parade. It should be made highly valuable for impressing upon
the minds of the young the history of their national liberty, and its
cause. Besides our own young people, we have with us the youth of many
nations, whose parents have come to our shores, drawn by various hopes
of gain and benefit. These children will form an important part of our
future body politic, in whose government to-day, their parents are, too,
easily able to participate.
The question will be, how to make the Fourth of July a true festival, a
national solemnity, without forgetting the claims of the young to be
amused, as well as to be instructed. In the first place, I should think
that the day might fitly be made one of reunion, by different clubs and
associations of culture and philanthropy. Those whose thoughts go deep
enough to understand the true conditions of human freedom, might meet and
compare their studies and experiences. Very fitly, after such a meeting,
each individual of them might seek a group, to whose members he might
present a popular statement of the philosophy of freedom. Mothers, who
should be the true guardians of peace, might well come together to study
all that promotes its maintenance. In gatherings of older children, prize
essays might be presented and discussed. I can imagine civic banquets,
of a serious and stately character, in which men and women might sit
together and pledge each other, in the exhilaration of friendship and
good feeling.
I would have processions, but I would have them less military in
character, and more pacific in suggestion. Congregations of the various
religious confessions might walk in order, headed by their ministers,
who should all exchange the right hand of fellowship with each other. I
would have no monster concerts, which cannot be fully enjoyed, but divers
assemblages, at which music of the highest order should be presented.
Letters of greeting should be exchanged between cities and states,
and the device of the day should be, “In the Name of the Republic.”
The history of the war which culminated in our national independence
should be amply illustrated by graphic lectures, and possibly by living
pictures. Mr. John Fiske has an admirable talent for bringing the past
and its heroes as vividly before us as if he himself had seen them but
the day before. If it were possible to multiply his valued personality, I
would have many sketches given in various places, of the brave struggle
of our forefathers and of those who were foremost in it.
“Going out of town to avoid the Fourth,” has been a phrase so common in
my time that it ceases to awaken attention, and is taken as a matter
of course. I cannot indeed wonder that people of refined tastes and
sensitive nerves should seek to free themselves from the noise and
crowd of the usual observance. The question is whether, with a wiser
administration, the same people might not be led to gather, rather than
to disperse for the celebration.
How would the following programme answer?
On the evening of the third of July, quiet gatherings in halls or
churches, in which the true love of country should be explained and
illustrated. How many a name, half or wholly forgotten, would then be
recalled from oblivion, and with it the labor and sacrifice of some noble
life, some example precious for the community!
The morning of the Fourth to be ushered in by martial music, and a
military display sufficient to recall the services of the brave men who
gave our fathers liberty. At ten o’clock orations in various public
buildings, the ablest speakers of the commonwealth doing their best to
impart the lesson of the day. At one a Spartan feast, wholesome and
simple. No liquor to be served thereat, and none to be sold during
the day. From twelve to half past four in the afternoon, I would have
exercises for the children of the public schools, examination of classes
in American history, prizes given for essays on historical and patriotic
subjects. Later, a gathering in public gardens, and a tea, with fruit and
flowers, served for the children of the city. In the evening, the singing
of national anthems, _tableaux vivants_ and fireworks, and in some form,
a pastoral benediction.
To these exercises I would add the signing of a pledge of good
citizenship. We take much pains, and not unwisely, to persuade men and
women to sign a pledge of total abstinence from alcoholic liquors.
But why should we not go further than this, and lead them to pledge
themselves to some useful service in the community? This pledge might
be either general or particular in its terms, but the act of signing it
should imply a disinterested public service of some sort, a participation
in some work useful for the health, beauty, or order of the city, without
other reward than the badge or button which would represent the agreement
entered into. I would have the history of other Republics brought forward
on this day, and especially, the heroic struggles of our own time. Among
these, I would certainly accord a place to the story of the great-hearted
men to whom Italy owes her freedom. And I would if I could compel the
attendance of our men and women of fashion upon lectures in which the
true inwardness of European society should be exposed, and the danger
shown of the follies and luxurious pomp which they delight in imitating,
and which, however æsthetically adorned and disguised, are for us to lead
in the pathway of moral and intellectual deterioration.
I would have the great political offenses of the century fitly shown,
the crimes of Louis Napoleon, the rapacious wars of Germany, France and
England, the wicked persecution of the Jews. Now that we are nearing
the close of our nineteenth century, it becomes most important for us
that its historic record should be truly rehearsed, its great saints and
sinners characterized, its wonderful discoveries and inventions explained.
The very meager programme suggested here for our great day may appear to
many Utopian and impossible. I shall be glad if it can serve to pave the
way for kindred suggestions, to which individual minds may give a broader
and more varied scope. Let us unite our efforts in behalf of a suitable
and serious honoring of the day in such wise that every heart, old and
young, shall have therein its especial joy, and every mind its especial
lesson.
I had at one time a plan of my own, of setting apart one day in the
year as a Mother’s Day. This festival was to be held in the interest
of a world’s peace, and for quite a number of years it was so observed
by groups of women in various parts of the country, while in England
and even in far-off Smyrna friends met together, with song, prayer,
and earnest discourse to emphasize the leading thought, which was that
women, as the mothers of the race, knowing fully the cost of human life,
should unite their efforts throughout the world to restrain the horrors
of war, and to persuade men to keep the sacred bond of peace. It now
occurs to me that we should make our Fourth of July a Mother’s, as well
as a Father’s day. In the public programme of every town throughout our
vast Commonwealth, women should have some word to say and some part to
play. What we have already seen of their culture and ability is enough to
assure us that their participation in such proceedings would intensify
their good features and discourage their objectionable ones. And as in
the forms of oratory with which we are familiar, much is made of what the
world owes to America, we might suggest that our women speakers might
especially bring forward the antithesis of this question, in another,
viz., What America owes to the world.
II
SPIRIT AND SIGNIFICANCE
ENGLAND AND AMERICA
BY JAMES BRYCE
This is a memorable day to Englishmen as well as to Americans. It is to
us a day both of regret and of rejoicing: of regret at the severance
of the political connection which bound the two branches of our race
together, and of regret even more for the unhappy errors which brought
that severance about, and the unhappy strife by which the memory of it
was embittered. But it is also a day of rejoicing, for it is the birthday
of the eldest daughter of England—the day when a new nation, sprung from
our own, first took its independent place in the world. And now with the
progress of time, rejoicing has prevailed over regret, and we in England
can at length join heartily with you in celebrating the beginning of your
national life. All sense of bitterness has passed away, and been replaced
by sympathy with all which this anniversary means to an American heart.
England and America now understand one another far better than they ever
did before. In 1776 there was on one side a monarch and a small ruling
caste, on the other side a people. Now our government can no longer
misrepresent the nation, and across the ocean a people speaks to a
people. We have both come, and that most notably within recent months, to
perceive that all over the world the interests of America and of England
are substantially the same.
The sense of our underlying unity over against the other races and forms
of civilization has been a potent force in drawing us together. It is
said that the Fourth of July is a day of happy augury for mankind. This
is true because on that day America entered on a course and proclaimed
principles of government which have been of profound significance for
mankind. Many nations have had a career of conquest and of civilizing
dominion: but to make an immense people prosperous, happy, and free is a
nobler and grander achievement than the most brilliant conquests and the
widest dominion.
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE NATION
(From address delivered July 4, 1851, at laying the cornerstone of the
new wing of the Capitol.)
BY DANIEL WEBSTER
This is that day of the year which announced to mankind the great fact
of American Independence! This fresh and brilliant morning blesses our
vision with another beholding of the birthday of our Nation; and we
see that Nation, of recent origin, now among the most considerable and
powerful, and spreading from sea to sea over the continent.
On the fourth day of July, 1776, the representatives of the United States
of America, in Congress assembled, declared that these Colonies are,
and ought to be, free and independent States. This declaration, made by
most patriotic and resolute men, trusting in the justice of their cause
and the protection of Heaven,—and yet not without deep solicitude and
anxiety—has now stood for seventy-five years. It was sealed in blood.
It has met dangers and overcome them. It has had detractors, and abashed
them all. It has had enemies, and conquered them. It has had doubting
friends, but it has cleared all doubts away; and now, to-day, raising its
august form higher than the clouds, twenty millions of people contemplate
it with hallowed love, and the world beholds it, and the consequences
that have followed from it, with profound admiration.
This anniversary animates and gladdens all American hearts. On other days
of the year we may be party men, indulging in controversies more or less
important to the public good. We may have likes and dislikes, and we may
maintain our political differences, often with warm, and sometimes with
angry feelings. But to-day we are Americans all; nothing but Americans.
As the great luminary over our heads, dissipating fogs and mist, now
cheers the whole atmosphere, so do the associations connected with this
day disperse all sullen and cloudy weather in the minds and feelings of
true Americans. Every man’s heart swells within him. Every man’s port
and bearing becomes somewhat more proud and lofty as he remembers that
seventy-five years have rolled away, and that the great inheritance of
Liberty is still his,—his, undiminished and unimpaired; his, in all its
original glory; his to enjoy; his to protect; his to transmit to future
generations.
THE FOURTH OF JULY
BY CHARLES LEONARD MOORE
(From _The Forum_.)
Let be the herds and what the harvest brings;
Give to oblivion all that’s sold and bought,
The count of unrememberable things;—
Our better birthright is this day’s report!
Live our sires in us? Keep we their old skill
To know Occasion’s whisper and be great?
Can our proud blood in one contagious thrill
Put admiration in the eyes of Fate?
Wide is our realm, and twin seas feel our yoke,
Aye, and the oarless ocean of the North;—
Are we then mightier than that scattered folk,
That fringe of clingers by the sea-beach froth
Whose loins begat us? Let to-morrow show
If their stern arts hereditary grow.
LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS
ANONYMOUS
_Sursum corda._ We have in our own time seen the Republic survive an
irrepressible conflict, sown in the blood and marrow of the social order.
We have seen the Federal Union, not too strongly put together in the
first place, come out of a great war of sections stronger than when it
went into it, its faith renewed, its credit rehabilitated, and its flag
saluted with love and homage by sixty millions of God-fearing men and
women, thoroughly reconciled and homogeneous. We have seen the Federal
Constitution outlast the strain, not merely of a Reconstructory ordeal
and a Presidential impeachment, but a disputed count of the Electoral
vote, a Congressional deadlock, and an extra constitutional tribunal, yet
standing firm against the assaults of its enemies, while yielding itself
with admirable flexibility to the needs of the country and the time. And
finally we saw the gigantic fabric of the Federal Government transferred
from the hands that held it a quarter of a century to other hands,
without a protest, although so close was the poll in the final count
that a single blanket might have covered both contestants for the Chief
Magisterial office. With such a record behind us, who shall be afraid of
the future?
The young manhood of the country may take this lesson from those of us
who lived through times that did indeed try men’s souls—when, pressed
down from day to day by awful responsibilities and suspense, each night
brought a terror with every thought of the morrow, and when, look where
we would, there were light and hope nowhere—that God reigns and wills,
and that this fair land is and has always been in His own keeping.
The curse of slavery is gone. It was a joint heritage of woe, to be wiped
out and expiated in blood and flame. The mirage of the Confederacy has
vanished. It was essentially bucolic, a vision of Arcadie, the dream of
a most attractive economic fallacy. The Constitution is no longer a rope
of sand. The exact relation of the States to the Federal Government,
left open to double construction by the authors of our organic being,
because they could not agree among themselves, and union was the
paramount object, has been clearly and definitely fixed by the three
last amendments to the original chart, which constitute the real treaty
of peace between the North and the South, and seal our bonds as a nation
forever.
The Republic represents at last the letter and the spirit of the sublime
Declaration. The fetters that bound her to the earth are burst asunder.
The rags that degraded her beauty are cast aside. Like the enchanted
princess in the legend, clad in spotless raiment and wearing a crown of
living light, she steps in the perfection of her maturity upon the scene
of this, the latest and proudest of her victories, to bid welcome to the
world.