finishing touches to his original draft of the Declaration of
Independence. Enter Mr. Adams._
MR. ADAMS. Good evening, Mr. Jefferson.
MR. JEFFERSON. Good evening, Mr. Adams.
MR. ADAMS. Well, have you the Declaration finished?
MR. JEFFERSON. Mr. Adams, I have done the best I could but I am not very
well satisfied with what I have written. I wish you would look it over
and make such corrections and criticisms as your judgment deems proper.
MR. ADAMS (_studying the Declaration_). Mr. Jefferson, I am delighted
with your production. Your statements relative to the inalienable rights
of men are unanswerable and to secure these rights, governments _must_
be instituted among men, _deriving_ their _just powers from_ the
_consent_ of the _governed_. This paragraph concerning negro slavery
meets with my approval but I fear it will not meet with the approval of
some of the Southern delegates. I congratulate you, Mr. Jefferson, on
what you have done. This document will make you immortal.
MR. JEFFERSON. Thank you, Mr. Adams, I fear you are too extravagant in
your praise of my work.
(_Enter Mr. Franklin and Mr. Sherman._)
MR. FRANKLIN. Well, gentlemen, have you completed the draft for the
Declaration?
MR. ADAMS. Mr. Jefferson has finished it. It is all his work. I have
reviewed the paper very hurriedly but in my opinion it is one of the
greatest documents ever written by man. Look it over, gentlemen, and let
us hear your opinion of it.
MR. FRANKLIN (_studying the Declaration_). Mr. Jefferson, I congratulate
you, sir. Your declaration on the inalienable rights of men is well
stated. I agree with you that governments _derive_ their _just powers
from_ the _consent_ of the _governed_. I like that paragraph on slavery
but I believe that some of the Southern delegates will oppose it. This
is a paper of which you should be proud, Mr. Jefferson. I congratulate
you, sir. Here, Mr. Sherman, let us have your views on this Declaration.
MR. SHERMAN (_studying the Declaration_). You have covered all our
grievances in the twenty-seven distinct charges you have made against
the present king of Great Britain. We can well afford to submit these
facts to a candid world. That paragraph on slavery, Mr. Jefferson, meets
with my approval heartily, but I fear some of the Southern delegates
will oppose it strongly. We can certainly appeal to the Supreme Judge of
the world for the rectitude of our intentions. I believe with you that
divine Providence will support us in making this Declaration good.
Therefore, I am willing to stand with you in pledging our lives, our
fortunes, and our sacred honor to this end. I do not see how I could
make any suggestions that would improve it. Mr. Jefferson, I
congratulate you on the great work you have done in this paper for our
country and for humanity.
MR. JEFFERSON. Gentlemen, I thank you all most heartily and sincerely
for the compliments you have paid me on this paper, but I am no orator
myself, especially for such an occasion as this; therefore, I should
like to have Mr. Adams report this Declaration to the Continental
Congress, move its adoption for me, and lead in the debates in favor of
it.
MR. FRANKLIN. Gentlemen:--I move that Mr. Adams be requested to report
this Declaration to the Congress as desired by Mr. Jefferson.
MR. SHERMAN. I second the motion.
MR. FRANKLIN. Gentlemen, you have heard the motion. As many as favor the
same make it known by saying "aye." (_Response of ayes; Mr. Adams is
silent_.) The ayes seem to have it, the ayes have it, and the motion is
carried for Mr. Adams to so report this Declaration. The committee is
adjourned.
CURTAIN
ACT III.
SCENE I.--_The Continental Congress again in session._
MR. HANCOCK. (_Looking at his watch, as he calls the Congress to
order._) Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--The time has come to
which we adjourned yesterday in order to give the Committee of Five,
appointed to draft the Declaration, due time to prepare the same. Are
the gentlemen of the Committee present and ready to report?
MR. ADAMS. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--At
the request of Mr. Jefferson and the other members of the Committee, I
beg leave to submit the following Declaration for your consideration
after it has been read by the secretary of this Congress. Permit me to
say here, however, that the credit for the authorship of this paper
belongs entirely to Mr. Jefferson. It is his work, which the other
members of the Committee are unanimous in approving.
(_Charles Thomson, secretary of the Congress, reads the Declaration
of Independence. This part should be assigned to one who has a good
clear voice and is a good public reader. If it is thought best not
to read all of the Declaration, its most striking paragraphs should
be read. Do not forget to have the famous paragraph on slavery
read. If it were omitted the great speech of George Walton would be
out of place._)
JOHN ADAMS.[6] Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental
Congress:--Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand
and my heart to this vote in favor of this Declaration of Independence.
It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at independence.
But there's a divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England
has driven us to arms; and, blinded to her own interest for our good,
she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our
grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why, then,
should we defer the Declaration?
Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England,
which shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, or
safety to his own life and his own honor? Are not you,[7] sir, who sit
in that chair, is not he,[8] our venerable colleague near you, are you
not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of punishment
and of vengeance? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you,
what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws? If we
postpone independence do we mean to carry on, or to give up the war? Do
we mean to submit to the measures of Parliament, Boston Port Bill and
all? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground
to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust? I
know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit. Do we intend to
violate that most solemn obligation ever entered into by men, that
plighting, before God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting
him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the political hazards
of the times, we promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our
fortunes and our lives? I know there is not a man here who would not
rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earthquake
sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the
ground. For myself, having twelve months ago, in this place, moved you,
that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or
to be raised, for defense of American liberty, may my right hand forget
her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate
or waver in the support I give him.
(_At the close of Mr. Adams' speech there is loud clamor for
recognition. The president recognizes Edward Rutledge of South
Carolina, who speaks against the Declaration._)
EDWARD RUTLEDGE. [9]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental
Congress:--Let us pause! This step, once taken, cannot be retraced. This
resolution, once passed, will cut off all hope of reconciliation. If
success attend the arms of England, we shall then be no longer colonies,
with charters, and with privileges. These will all be forfeited by this
act; and we shall be in the condition of other conquered people--at the
mercy of the conquerors. For ourselves, we may be ready to run the
hazard; but are we ready to carry the country to that length? Is success
so probable as to justify it? Where is the military, where the naval
power, by which we are to resist the whole strength of the arm of
England? For she will exert that strength to the utmost. Can we rely on
the constancy and perseverance of the people?--or will they not act as
the people of other countries have acted, and, wearied with a long war,
submit in the end, to a worse oppression? While we stand on our old
ground, and insist on redress of grievances, we know we are right, and
are not answerable for consequences. Nothing, then, can be imputable to
us.
(_At the close of Mr. Rutledge's speech there is a clamor for
recognition. The president recognizes Roger Sherman of
Connecticut._)
ROGER SHERMAN. [10]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental
Congress:--The war must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war
must go on, why put off longer the Declaration of Independence? That
measure will strengthen us. It will give us character abroad. The
nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we
acknowledge ourselves subjects, in arms against our sovereign. Nay, I
maintain that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on
the footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to
acknowledge that her whole conduct toward us has been a course of
injustice and oppression. Her pride will be less wounded by submitting
to the course of things which now predestinates our independence, than
by yielding the points in controversy to her rebellious subjects. The
former she will regard as the result of fortune; the latter she would
feel as her own deep disgrace. Why, then, why, then, sir, do we not as
soon as possible change this from a civil to a national war? And since
we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all
the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory?
If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause
will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people, the
people, if we are true to them will carry us, and will carry themselves,
gloriously through this struggle. I care not how fickle other people
have been found. I know the people of these colonies, and I know that
resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts,
and cannot be eradicated. Every colony, indeed, has expressed its
willingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the Declaration
will inspire the people with increased courage. Instead of a long and
bloody war for the restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances,
for chartered immunities, held under a British king, set before them the
glorious object of entire independence, and it will breathe into them
anew the breath of life. Read this Declaration at the head of the army;
every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered
to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the
pulpit, religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will
cling around it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to
the public halls; proclaim it there; let them hear it who heard the
first roar of the enemy's cannon; let them see it who saw their brothers
and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill and in the streets of
Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support.
(_At the close of Mr. Sherman's speech there is a loud clamor for
recognition. The president recognizes John Dickinson of
Pennsylvania._)
JOHN DICKINSON. [11]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental
Congress:--If we now change our object, carry our pretensions farther,
and set up for absolute independence, we shall lose the sympathy of
mankind. We shall no longer be defending what we possess, but struggling
for something which we never did possess, and which we have solemnly and
uniformly disclaimed all intention of pursuing, from the very outset of
the troubles. Abandoning thus our old ground of resistance only to
arbitrary acts of oppression, the nations will believe the whole to have
been mere pretense, and they will look on us, not as injured, but as
ambitious subjects. I shudder before this responsibility. It will be
upon us, it will be upon us, if, relinquishing the ground we have stood
upon so long, and stood so safely, we now proclaim independence, and
carry on the war for that object, while these cities burn, these
pleasant fields whiten and bleach with the bones of their owners, and
these streams run blood. It will be upon us, it will be upon us, if
failing to maintain this unseasonable and ill-judged Declaration, a
sterner despotism, maintained by military power, shall be established
over our posterity, when we ourselves, given up by an exhausted, a
harassed, a misled people, shall have expiated our rashness and atoned
for our presumption on the scaffold.
[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN]
(_At the close of Mr. Dickinson's speech there is a loud clamor for
recognition. The president recognizes Benjamin Franklin of
Pennsylvania._)
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. [12]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental
Congress:--I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see
clearly, through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We
may not live to the time when this Declaration shall be made good. We
may die; die colonists; die slaves; die, it may be ignominiously and on
the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that
my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall
be ready, at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may.
But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a
country, and that a free country.
But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured that this
Declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, and it may cost blood; but
it will stand, and it will richly compensate for both. Through the thick
gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future as the sun in
heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal day. When we are in
our graves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with
thanksgiving, with festivity, with bonfires, and illuminations. On its
annual return they will shed tears, copious, gushing tears, not of
subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of
gratitude, and of joy. Sir, before God, I believe the hour has come. My
whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I
hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it; and I leave off
as Mr. Adams of Massachusetts began, that, sink or swim, live or die,
survive or perish, I am for the Declaration. It is my living sentiment,
and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence
_now, and_ INDEPENDENCE FOREVER!
(_There is a loud clamor for recognition, and the president
recognizes George Walton of Georgia._)
GEORGE WALTON. [13]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental
Congress:--I am for this Declaration if the paragraph on slavery is
struck out. But I will oppose it to the end if that paragraph is
permitted to remain a part of it. There is not one good reason for
introducing the slavery question at this time. The relations between
individual master and slave have no place here in the greater and graver
matter of differences between the British Government and the American
Colonies. But since the issue is thrust upon us, I propose to meet it
squarely and fearlessly.
Mr. President and gentlemen, you cannot make equal what God Almighty has
made unequal. Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his
spots? The Bible commands in the most emphatic language that servants
obey in all things their masters. Liberty loving Greece had her slaves.
Shall liberty loving America have less? Strike out that obnoxious
paragraph and every delegate from the Southern colonies will fall in
line for the Declaration of Independence, but if you make that paragraph
a part of the Declaration many delegates from the South will withdraw
from this convention, and then you will fight your own battles.
This paragraph on slavery is founded upon ideas fundamentally wrong.
These ideas rest upon the assumption of the equality of the races. This
is an error. It is a sandy foundation and a government founded upon it
will fall when the storms come and the winds blow.
Let us found our new government upon the great truth that the negro is
not the equal of the white man, that slavery--subordination to the
superior race--is his natural and normal condition. This truth has been
slow in the process of its development, like all other great truths in
the various departments of science.
Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the
subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the _same_ race; such
were and are in violation of the laws of nature. With us, _all_ the
_white_ race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of
the law. Not so with the negro; subordination is his place. He, by
nature or by the curse of Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he
now occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of a
building, lays the foundation with proper material--the granite; then
comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of
the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it
is best not only for the superior race, but for the inferior race, that
it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the laws of the
Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His plans, or to
question them. For His own good purposes He has made one race to differ
from another, as He has made "one star to differ from another star in
glory."
Therefore, I declare again that you cannot make equal what God Almighty
has made unequal. He has made the negro and the white man unequal. You
cannot make them equal. And I move that the paragraph on slavery be
struck out. I have measured my words, gentlemen. The responsibility is
yours.
(_At the close of Mr. Walton's speech there is a loud clamor for
recognition, and the chair recognizes Samuel Adams._)
SAMUEL ADAMS. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--While I have no personal
objections against this paragraph on slavery--for personally I favor
it--yet from the standpoint of the general welfare of the colonies, I
deem it unwise at this time to take any action either for or against the
question of slavery. Therefore I second the motion of Mr. Walton to
strike out the paragraph on slavery.
MR. HANCOCK. Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--It has been duly
moved and seconded that the paragraph in this Declaration on slavery be
struck out. You have heard the motion, are there any remarks?
WILLIAM HOOPER. Mr. President, before voting on this motion, I wish to
have the paragraph on slavery read again.
(_This request is seconded by many of the delegates._)
MR. HANCOCK. The secretary will read the paragraph on slavery again.
(_The secretary reads the paragraph on slavery as follows:_)
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most
sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who
never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in
another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation
thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is
the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep
open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted
his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to
restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors
might want no fact of distinguished dye, he is now exciting those very
people to rise in arms among us and to purchase that liberty of which he
has deprived them by murdering the people upon whom he obtruded them:
thus paying off, former crimes committed against the _liberties_ of one
people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the _lives_ of
another.
(_After the reading of this paragraph the delegates call for a vote
on Mr. Walton's motion._)
MR. HANCOCK. Gentlemen of the Congress, a vote is called for on Mr.
Walton's motion to strike out the paragraph on slavery. As many as are
in favor of this motion make it known by saying "aye" (_a strong aye
vote_); as many as are opposed to the motion make it known by responding
"no" (_a light vote of noes_). The ayes seem to have it, the ayes have
it, and the paragraph on slavery is struck out. Gentlemen, what is your
further pleasure?
(_A loud clamor for recognition, the chair recognizing Joseph Hewes
of North Carolina._)
JOSEPH HEWES. [14]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental
Congress:--No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as
well as the abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have opposed
this Declaration in these debates. But different men often see the same
subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be
thought disrespectful to those gentlemen, if, entertaining, as I do,
opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my
sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The
question before the house is one of awful moment to this country. For my
own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or
slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be
the freedom of debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive
at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and
our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear
of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason toward
my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven,
which I revere above all earthly kings.
Mr. President, it is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of
hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to
the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the
part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?
Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who, having eyes, see
not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their
temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost,
I am willing to know the truth; to know the worst, and to provide for
it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of
experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.
And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the
conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those
hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and
the house? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been
lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet.
Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how
this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike
preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and
armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown
ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to
win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the
implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings
resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its
purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other
possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of
the world, that calls for all this accumulation of navies and armies?
No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no
other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains, which
the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to
oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for
the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject?
Nothing! We have held the subject up in every light of which it is
capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and
humble supplication? What terms shall we find, which have not been
already exhausted? Let us not. I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves
longer.
(_A loud clamor for recognition. The chair recognizes Robert Morris
of Pennsylvania._)
ROBERT MORRIS. [15]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental
Congress:--I am opposed to war first, last, and all the time. It is a
relic of barbarism. I believe in the gospel of peace on earth, good will
toward men. It would be better to settle our differences with England
even by flipping a coin than by fighting and killing one another. Let us
hearken unto the voice of God as it comes ringing down the centuries
from Mount Sinai, "Thou shalt not kill." Shall this new government start
out as the Cain among the nations of earth with the blood of our
brethren upon our hands? God forbid that we make ourselves so foolish
and so reckless as this! The history of trial by battle is the history
of folly and wickedness. As we revert to those early periods in the
history of the human race in which it prevailed, our minds are shocked
at the barbarism which we behold; we are horror stricken at the awful
subjection of justice to brute force.
Who told you, fond man! to regard that as glory when performed by a
nation, which is condemned as a crime and a barbarism, when committed by
an individual? In what vain conceit of wisdom and virtue do you find
this degrading morality? Where is it declared that God, who is no
respecter of persons, is a respecter of multitudes? Whence do you draw
these partial laws of a powerful and impartial God? Man is immortal; but
states are mortal. Man has a higher destiny than states. Shall states be
less amenable to the great moral laws of God than man? Each individual
is an atom of the mass. Must not the mass be like individuals of which
it is composed? Shall the mass do what the individual may not do? No! A
thousand times _NO_! The same laws which govern individuals govern
masses, as the same laws in nature prevail over large and small things,
controlling the fall of an apple and the orbits of the planets.
And who is this god of battles that some of you men believe in with so
much faith? It is Mars--man-slaying, blood-polluted, city-smiting, Mars!
Him we cannot adore. It is not he who causes the sun to shine on the
just and the unjust. It is not he who tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb. It is not he who distills the oil of gladness in every upright
heart. It is not he who fills the fountain of mercy and goodness. He is
not the God of love and justice. The god of battles is not the God of
Christians; to him can ascend no prayer of Christian thanksgiving; for
him no words of worship in Christian temples, no swelling anthem to peal
the note of praise.
Let us cease, then, to look for a lamp to our feet in the feeble tapers
that glimmer in the sepulchers of the past. Rather let us hail those
ever-burning lights above in whose beams is the brightness of the
noon-day. As the cedars of Lebanon are higher than the grass of the
valley, as the heavens are higher than the earth, as man is higher than
the beasts of the field, as the angels are higher than man, as he that
ruleth his spirit is higher than he that taketh a city; so are the
virtues and glories and victories of peace higher than the virtues and
victories of war.
To this great work of world-wide peace let me summon you. Believe that
you can do it, and you can do it. Blessed are the peace-makers for they
are the children of God.
(_Loud clamor for recognition, the chair recognizing Patrick Henry
of Virginia._)
PATRICK HENRY. [16]Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Continental
Congress:--We have done everything that could be done, to avert the
storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated;
we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne,
and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of
the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our
remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our
supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with
contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may
we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer
any room for hope. If we wish to be free--if we mean to preserve
inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long
contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which
we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never
to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be
obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to
arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us.
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable
an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week,
or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a
British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather
strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of
effectual resistance, by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the
delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and
foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make proper use of those means which
the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people,
armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which
we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against
us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just
God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up
friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the
strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides,
sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now
too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in
submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be
heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable--and let it come! I
repeat it, sir, let it come.
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace,
peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale,
that sweeps from the north, will bring to our ears the clash of
resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we
here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life
so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains
and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may
take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
(_At the close of Mr. Henry's speech there are loud calls for a
vote upon the question. President Hancock orders the secretary to
call the roll of colonies in geographic order beginning with New
Hampshire._)
SECRETARY THOMSON. New Hampshire!
Josiah Bartlett. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--New Hampshire is
represented in the Congress by three delegates. Her people have appealed
to us and have instructed us to work for and vote for Independence. I
believe everybody knows more than any body. I consider it a signal
honor, sir, and it is the happiest hour of my life, to lead in this roll
call in favor of this Declaration. New Hampshire votes _aye_.
(_Shouts of "Three cheers for New Hampshire."_)
SECRETARY THOMSON. Massachusetts!
SAMUEL ADAMS. Mr. President:--The king of England has set a price upon
your head and mine. If this Declaration is not made good by the people
of these colonies you and I will be shot, hanged by the neck till dead,
or burned at the stake as traitors. If we fail, my only regret will be
that I have but one life to give for my country. But with faith in the
people and in God to carry our cause through to a glorious victory, the
delegates from Massachusetts stand as one man for Independence.
Massachusetts, therefore, votes _aye_.
(_Shouts of "Three cheers for Massachusetts, and long live Samuel
Adams and John Hancock. Down with the tyrant king of England!"_)
SECRETARY THOMSON. Rhode Island!
STEPHEN HOPKINS. Mr. President:--Rhode Island is a small colony. She is
represented in this Congress by only two delegates. But all that we are
and all we hope to be we are ready here and now to give for
Independence. Rhode Island votes _aye_.
(_Shouts of "Three cheers for brave Rhode Island, Stephen Hopkins,
and William Ellery."_)
SECRETARY THOMSON. Connecticut!
ROGER SHERMAN. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--I have already addressed
you at some length in favor of this Declaration. It becomes my happy
duty now to cast the unanimous vote of the four delegates from
Connecticut for independence. Connecticut votes _aye_.
(_Shouts of "Long live Roger Sherman! Three cheers for
Connecticut."_)
_Secretary Thomson._ New York!
WILLIAM FLOYD. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--The instructions against
independence for the delegates from New York have never been recalled.
We, therefore, request the privilege to refrain from voting on this
question. We regret the situation, gentlemen!
PRESIDENT HANCOCK. New York is excused from voting on this question.
SECRETARY THOMSON. New Jersey!
RICHARD STOCKTON. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--I am happy to say that
New Jersey has given her five delegates in this Congress instructions to
vote for independence. New Jersey, therefore, votes _aye_.
(_Shouts of "Three cheers for New Jersey."_)
SECRETARY THOMSON. Pennsylvania!
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--From the beginning of
this Congress the delegates from Pennsylvania have labored under
instructions against independence. But during the past three months the
friends of independence in this commonwealth have worked in season and
out of season to have these instructions canceled and permission given
us to vote for independence. At a mass meeting in Philadelphia on June
18, presided over by that distinguished and influential radical, Colonel
Daniel Roberdeau, and attended by over 7,000 citizens from all sections
of the state, a public sentiment was created and started that resulted
in the overthrow of the old government of the aristocrats of the old
Assembly and then established a new government of the people under the
authority of the Conference of Committees which has given the delegates
from Pennsylvania instructions to vote for independence. Two of our
delegates, John Dickinson and Robert Morris, have retired from this
Congress considering such instructions a recall of their membership in
this body. Two other delegates from Pennsylvania, Charles Humphreys and
William Williams, question the authority of the Conference of Committees
and hold that the instructions of the old defunct Assembly are still
binding upon them. They vote against independence. But James Wilson who
has been opposed to Independence bows to the will of the people and
joins John Morton and myself in voting for Independence. Under the rule
of this Congress made in its beginning session that a majority of the
delegates from each colony, present and voting determines its vote upon
such a question as this, Pennsylvania casts two votes against
independence and three votes for independence and therefore votes _aye_.
(_Shouts of "Three cheers for Pennsylvania! Long live Benjamin
Franklin, John Morton, and James Wilson!"_)
(_Immediately following the applause for Franklin, Caesar Rodney, a
delegate from Delaware, makes his appearance just in time to vote.
He has come eighty miles on horseback and has not had time to
change his boots and spurs and still carries a riding whip. He is
given a great ovation._)
SECRETARY THOMSON. Delaware!
THOMAS McKEAN. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--Until this moment the vote
for Delaware has been in doubt. George Read, my colleague, will vote
against independence. But thank God the timely arrival of Caesar Rodney
who joins me in voting for independence, places Delaware on the right
side of this question. To make sure of this I sent an express rider at
my own expense to Dover, Delaware, for Mr. Rodney. He has come eighty
miles on horseback at post-haste. He has not had time to change his
riding attire, but he is here in time to join me in voting for
independence. Posterity will erect a monument in his honor[17] as they
will to that other famous revolutionary rider--Paul Revere. Mr.
President, under the rule as stated by Mr. Franklin governing the votes
of colonies in this Congress, Delaware votes _aye_.
(_Shouts of "Hurrah for Delaware! Long live Thomas McKean and
Caesar Rodney!"_)
SECRETARY THOMSON. Maryland!
SAMUEL CHASE. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--Maryland has passed through
a similar struggle to that in Pennsylvania as described by Mr. Franklin.
An appeal has been made to every county committee and one after another
they have directed their representatives in the state convention to vote
for new instructions to the delegates in this Congress. At last the old
instructions against independence have been canceled and new
instructions given us in an unanimous resolve to vote for independence.
See the glorious effect of county instructions! Our people have fire if
not smothered. And, therefore, Maryland votes _aye_.
(_Shouts of "Three cheers for Maryland and Samuel Chase!"_)
SECRETARY THOMSON. Virginia!
BENJAMIN HARRISON. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--Virginia is here with a
solid delegation for independence. Our battle cry has been so well
stated by Mr. Henry that we need but to repeat it now--Liberty or Death!
Virginia votes _aye_.
(_Shouts of "Three cheers for Virginia! Long live Richard Henry
Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry!"_)
SECRETARY THOMSON. North Carolina!
JOSEPH HEWES. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--We have had a hard struggle
in North Carolina between aristocracy on one hand and democracy on the
other. But at last the people have won and North Carolina votes _aye_.
(_Shouts of "Three cheers for North Carolina!_")
[Illustration: From the painting by Trumbull
THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS]
SECRETARY THOMSON. South Carolina!
EDWARD RUTLEDGE. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--When Richard Henry Lee's
resolution declaring for independence was first introduced I was opposed
to its adoption _at that time_. I feared that the people of my colony
were not then ready for it. I thought also that for the general welfare
of all the colonies it was then too early to declare for independence.
The contest in South Carolina for independence has been as bitter among
her own people as it has been in any of the other colonies. But opinions
alter and conditions change with the passing of time. Therefore, South
Carolina now has a solid delegation here ready to walk through the fiery
furnace of war, though it be seventy times heated, to make this
Declaration good. South Carolina votes _aye_.
(_Shouts of "Three cheers for South Carolina and Edward
Rutledge!"_)
SECRETARY THOMSON. Georgia!
LYMAN HALL. Mr. President and Gentlemen:--Georgia is here with three
delegates who stand as one man for independence. Though last on the roll
of states on this question she will be among the first in her efforts
for American independence. Georgia votes _aye_.
(_Shouts of "Three cheers for Georgia!"_)
PRESIDENT HANCOCK. Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--Twelve of the
thirteen colonies having voted for the Declaration of Independence, and
with no colony going on record against it, I consider our action
unanimous for I am confident that the New York Assembly[18] will give
her delegation instructions to sign this document in the near future.
JOHN ADAMS. Mr. President, I move that this Congress do now adjourn.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. Mr. President, I second the motion.
PRESIDENT HANCOCK. Gentlemen of the Continental Congress, it has been
moved by Mr. Adams of Massachusetts and seconded by Mr. Franklin of
Pennsylvania that we do now adjourn. As many as favor this motion make
known by saying _aye_.
(_Unanimous response of ayes._)
The motion to adjourn has been carried unanimously and this Congress is
therefore adjourned.
SCENE II.--_The Spirit of 76._
Here repeat the Tableau of the Spirit of Seventy-six.
ACT IV.
SCENE I.--_Washington's Resignation. (A special session of the
Continental Congress to receive the Resignation of Washington.)_
PRESIDENT HANCOCK. Gentlemen of the Continental Congress:--Eight years
ago we made General George Washington Commander-in-Chief of the armies
raised and to be raised for American Independence. Through seven long
years of war, against overwhelming odds, in which brave men did brave
deeds, the rich man gave his wealth and the poor man gave his life,
baptizing their country's soil with their own blood from Bunker Hill to
Yorktown, the brave soldiers under General Washington fought on until an
army of veteran soldiers surrendered to a band of insurgent husbandmen.
The American nation has been born. Its independence has been recognized
by Great Britain and the civilized world. Peace has come! And General
Washington desires to surrender his commission to the Congress that
elected him to this position. He is in waiting to do this. I therefore
appoint John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania,
Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Samuel Chase of Maryland, Patrick Henry of
Virginia, Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, and Lyman Hall of Georgia,
as an honorary committee to escort General Washington before this
Congress, to receive his resignation.
(_General Washington is escorted before Congress and makes the
following address:_)
_Mr. President:_--The great events on which my resignation depended,
having at length taken place, I have now the honor of offering my
sincere congratulations to Congress, and of presenting myself before
them to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to
claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country.
Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, and
pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of becoming a
respectable nation, I resign, with satisfaction, the appointment I
accepted with diffidence; a diffidence in my abilities to accomplish so
arduous a task, which, however, was superseded by a confidence in the
rectitude of our cause, the support of the Supreme Power of the Union,
and the patronage of Heaven.
The successful termination of the war has verified the most sanguine
expectations; and my gratitude for the interposition of Providence, and
the assistance I have received from my countrymen, increases with every
review of the momentous contest.
While I repeat my obligations to the army in general, I should do
injustice to my own feelings, not to acknowledge, in this place, the
peculiar services and distinguished merits of the persons who have been
attached to my person during the war. It was impossible the choice of
confidential officers to compose my family could have been more
fortunate. Permit me sir, to recommend in particular those who have
continued in the service to the present moment as worthy of the
favorable notice and patronage of Congress.
I consider it as an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of
my official life, by commending the interests of our dearest country to
the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence
of them to his holy keeping.
Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great
theater of action; and, bidding an affectionate farewell to this august
body, under whose orders I have long acted, I here offer my commission,
and take my leave of all the employments of public life.
(_The Continental Congress, standing and shouting in concert, "Long
live General George Washington! First in war! First in peace! And
First in the hearts of his countrymen!"_)
CURTAIN
Footnotes:
[1] In small schools where there are not enough large boys to represent
all the characters, those who represent members of the Continental
Congress can become members of Washington's army, etc., for the other
scenes.
[2] This speech is adapted from Paine's "Separation of Britain and
America."
[3] Adapted from Wirt's supposed speech of Lee.
[4] This dialogue between Adams and Jefferson is taken from Adams's
letter to Timothy Pickering.
[5] If this is properly staged it will be very effective. National Guard
members will be glad to take part as members of Washington's army, with
their tents and uniforms and arms, if there are no school cadets to play
this part. The bugler sounds the call to arms. The soldiers fall into
line ready for the fight. Just before marching orders are given,
Washington delivers the following address, after which the curtain goes
down on this scene and the sound of battle is heard in the distance.
[6] This is a part of Webster's "Supposed Speech of John Adams."
[7] John Hancock.
[8] Samuel Adams.
[9] From Webster's "Supposed Speech of Opposition to Independence."
[10] From Webster's "Supposed Speech of John Adams."
[11] From Webster's "Supposed Speech of Opposition to Independence."
[12] From Webster's "Supposed Speech of John Adams."
[13] Adapted from the "Corner Stone" speech of Alexander H. Stephens,
and arranged by William R. Hood, Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C.
[14] From Wirt's "Supposed Speech of Patrick Henry."
[15] Robert Morris later signed the Declaration of Independence and
through his influence the American Revolution was financed. This speech
is adapted from Sumner's "True Grandeur of Nations" and other sources.
[16] From Wirt's "Supposed Speech of Patrick Henry."
[17] A monument was recently erected at Dover in his honor.
[18] On July 9, 1776, New York instructed her delegates to sign.
AMERICAN PATRIOTISM
[Illustration: GEORGE WASHINGTON]
WHAT IS PATRIOTISM
Johnson defines a patriot as one whose ruling passion is the love of his
country, and patriotism as love and zeal for one's country. Curtis tells
us that Lowell's pursuit was literature, but patriotism was his passion.
"His love of country was that of a lover for his mistress. He resented
the least imputation upon the ideal America, and nothing was finer than
his instinctive scorn for the pinchbeck patriotism which brags and
boasts and swaggers, insisting that bigness is greatness and vulgarity
simplicity, and the will of a majority the moral law."
While some of us cannot make Lowell's pursuit our pursuit, we all can
and should make his passion our passion. Let us all, the native born as
well as the naturalized, say, deep down in our hearts with a patriotism
and a courage that will back it up and make it good, "Our Country--right
or wrong; if she is wrong we will set her right; if she is right we will
keep her right; and so let us trust in God and believe she is right."
Times like these demand men. Let American boys be taught in the home and
in the school and by the example of their fathers to be men among men.
"Men whom the lust of office will not kill,
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy,
Men who possess opinions and a will,
Men who have honor and will not lie;
Men who can stand before the demagogue
And down his treacherous flattering without winking,
Tall men, sun crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking!"[1]
Times like these demand women! Let American girls be taught in the home
and in the school and by the example of their mothers to be women among
women.
"Be women! on to duty!
Raise the world from all that's low;
Place high in the social heaven
Virtue's fair and radiant bow;
Lend thy influence to each effort
That shall raise our nature human;
Be not fashion's gilded ladies,--
Be brave, whole-souled, true women!"[2]
To help to make such men and women of all American boys and
girls--Americans in _deeds_ as well as in _words_--Americans, who
knowing their rights, dare maintain them "_without compromise and at any
cost_"--this is the purpose of the following selections.
Jasper L. McBrien.
AMERICA FOR ME[3]
'Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings--
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.
_So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars._
Oh! London is a man's town, there's power in the air;
And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living, there is no place like home.
I like the German fir-woods, in green battalions drilled;
I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing fountains filled;
But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day
In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her way!
I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack:
The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free--
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.
_Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea,
To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars._
Henry van Dyke
AMERICA FIRST
The following address was delivered by President Wilson at the
celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Daughters of the
American Revolution, Washington, D. C., October 11th, 1915. It is
given here by special permission of the president.
MADAM PRESIDENT AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--Again it is my very great
privilege to welcome you to the city of Washington and to the
hospitalities of the Capital. May I admit a point of ignorance? I was
surprised to learn that this association is so young, and that an
association so young should devote itself wholly to memory I cannot
believe. For to me the duties to which you are consecrated are more than
the duties and the pride of memory.
There is a very great thrill to be had from the memories of the American
Revolution, but the American Revolution was a beginning, not a
consummation, and the duty laid upon us by that beginning is the duty of
bringing the things then begun to a noble triumph of completion. For it
seems to me that the peculiarity of patriotism in America is that it is
not a mere sentiment. It is an active principle of conduct. It is
something that was born into the world, not to please it but to
regenerate it. It is something that was born into the world to replace
systems that had preceded it and to bring men out upon a new plane of
privilege. The glory of the men whose memories you honor and perpetuate
is that they saw this vision, and it was a vision of the future. It was
a vision of great days to come when a little handful of three million
people upon the borders of a single sea should have become a great
multitude of free men and women spreading across a great continent,
dominating the shores of two oceans, and sending West as well as East
the influences of individual freedom. These things were consciously in
their minds as they framed the great Government which was born out of
the American Revolution; and every time we gather to perpetuate their
memories it is incumbent upon us that we should be worthy of recalling
them and that we should endeavor by every means in our power to emulate
their example.
The American Revolution was the birth of a nation; it was the creation
of a great free republic based upon traditions of personal liberty which
theretofore had been confined to a single little island, but which it
was purposed should spread to all mankind. And the singular fascination
of American history is that it has been a process of constant
re-creation, of making over again in each generation the thing which was
conceived at first. You know how peculiarly necessary that has been in
our case, because America has not grown by the mere multiplication of
the original stock. It is easy to preserve tradition with continuity of
blood; it is easy in a single family to remember the origins of the race
and the purposes of its organization; but it is not so easy when that
race is constantly being renewed and augmented from other sources, from
stocks that did not carry or originate the same principles.
So from generation to generation strangers have had to be indoctrinated
with the principles of the American family, and the wonder and the
beauty of it all has been that the infection has been so generously
easy. For the principles of liberty are united with the principles of
hope. Every individual, as well as every nation, wishes to realize the
best thing that is in him, the best thing that can be conceived out of
the materials of which his spirit is constructed. It has happened in a
way that fascinates the imagination that we have not only been augmented
by additions from outside, but that we have been greatly stimulated by
those additions. Living in the easy prosperity of a free people, knowing
that the sun had always been free to shine upon us and prosper our
undertakings, we did not realize how hard the task of liberty is and how
rare the privilege of liberty is; but men were drawn out of every
climate and out of every race because of an irresistible attraction of
their spirits to the American ideal. They thought of America as lifting,
like that great statue in the harbor of New York, a torch to light the
pathway of men to the things that they desire, and men of all sorts and
conditions struggled toward that light and came to our shores with an
eager desire to realize it, and a hunger for it such as some of us no
longer felt, for we were as if satiated and satisfied and were indulging
ourselves after a fashion that did not belong to the ascetic devotion of
the early devotees of those great principles. Strangers came to remind
us of what we had promised ourselves and through ourselves had promised
mankind. All men came to us and said, "Where is the bread of life with
which you promised to feed us, and have you partaken of it yourselves?"
For my part, I believe that the constant renewal of this people out of
foreign stocks has been a constant source of reminder to this people of
what the inducement was that was offered to men who would come and be of
our number.
Now we have come to a time of special stress and test. There never was
time when we needed more clearly to conserve the principles of our own
patriotism than this present time. The rest of the world from which our
polities were drawn seems for the time in the crucible and no man can
predict what will come out of that crucible. We stand apart,
unembroiled, conscious of our own principles, conscious of what we hope
and purpose, so far as our powers permit, for the world at large, and it
is necessary that we should consolidate the American principle. Every
political action, every social action, should have for its object in
America at this time to challenge the spirit of America; to ask that
every man and woman who thinks first of America should rally to the
standards of our life. There have been some among us who have not
thought first of America, who have thought to use the might of America
in some matter not of America's origination. They have forgotten that
the first duty of a nation is to express its own individual principles
in the action of the family of nations and not to seek to aid and abet
any rival or contrary ideal. Neutrality is a negative word. It is a word
that does not express what America ought to feel. America has a heart
and that heart throbs with all sorts of intense sympathies, but America
has schooled its heart to love the things that America believes in and
it ought to devote itself only to the things that America believes in;
and, believing that America stands apart in its ideals, it ought not to
allow itself to be drawn, so far as its heart is concerned, into
anybody's quarrel. Not because it does not understand the quarrel, not
because it does not in its head assess the merits of the controversy,
but because America has promised the world to stand apart and maintain
certain principles of action which are grounded in law and in justice.
We are not trying to keep out of trouble; we are trying to preserve the
foundations upon which peace can be rebuilt. Peace can be rebuilt only
upon the ancient and accepted principles of international law, only upon
those things which remind nations of their duties to each other, and,
deeper than that, of their duties to mankind and to humanity.
America has a great cause which is not confined to the American
continent. It is the cause of humanity itself. I do not mean in anything
that I say even to imply a judgment upon any nation or upon any policy,
for my object here this afternoon is not to sit in judgment upon anybody
but ourselves and to challenge you to assist all of us who are trying to
make America more than ever conscious of her own principles and her own
duty. I look forward to the necessity in every political agitation in
the years which are immediately at hand of calling upon every man to
declare himself, where he stands. Is it America first, or is it not?
We ought to be very careful about some of the impressions that we are
forming just now. There is too general an impression, I fear, that very
large numbers of our fellow citizens born in other lands have not
entertained with sufficient intensity and affection the American ideal.
But the number of such is, I am sure, not large. Those who would seek to
represent them are very vocal, but they are not very influential. Some
of the best stuff of America has come out of foreign lands, and some of
the best stuff in America is in the men who are naturalized citizens of
the United States. I would not be afraid upon the test of "America
first" to take a census of all the foreign-born citizens of the United
States, for I know that the vast majority of them came here because they
believed in America; and their belief in America has made them better
citizens than some people who were born in America. They can say that
they have bought this privilege with a great price. They have left their
homes, they have left their kindred, they have broken all the nearest
and dearest ties of human life in order to come to a new land, take a
new rootage, begin a new life, and so by self-sacrifice express their
confidence in a new principle; whereas, it cost us none of these things.
We were born into this privilege; we were rocked and cradled in it; we
did nothing to create it; and it is, therefore, the greater duty on our
part to do a great deal to enhance it and preserve it. I am not deceived
as to the balance of opinion among the foreign-born citizens of the
United States, but I am in a hurry for an opportunity to have a line-up
and let the men who are thinking first of other countries stand on one
side and all those that are for America first, last, and all the time on
the other side.
Now, you can do a great deal in this direction. When I was a college
officer. I used to be very much opposed to hazing; not because hazing is
not wholesome, but because sophomores are poor judges. I remember a very
dear friend of mine, a professor of ethics on the other side of the
water, was asked if he thought it was ever justifiable to tell a lie. He
said Yes, he thought it was sometimes justifiable to lie; "but," he
said, "it is so difficult to judge of the justification that I usually
tell the truth." I think that ought to be the motto of the sophomore.
There are freshmen who need to be hazed, but the need is to be judged by
such nice tests that a sophomore is hardly old enough to determine them.
But the world can determine them. We are not freshmen at college, but we
are constantly hazed. I would a great deal rather be obliged to draw
pepper up my nose than to observe the hostile glances of my neighbors. I
would a great deal rather be beaten than ostracized. I would a great
deal rather endure any sort of physical hardship if I might have the
affection of my fellow men. We constantly discipline our fellow citizens
by having an opinion about them. That is the sort of discipline we ought
now to administer to everybody who is not to the very core of his heart
an American. Just have an opinion about him and let him experience the
atmospheric effects of that opinion! And I know of no body of persons
comparable to a body of ladies for creating an atmosphere of opinion! I
have myself in part yielded to the influences of that atmosphere, though
it took me a long time to determine how I was going to vote in New
Jersey.
So it has seemed to me that my privilege this afternoon was not merely
a privilege of courtesy, but the real privilege of reminding you--for I
am sure I am doing nothing more--of the great principles which we stand
associated to promote. I for my part rejoice that we belong to a country
in which the whole business of government is so difficult. We do not
take orders from anybody; it is a universal communication of conviction,
the most subtle, delicate, and difficult of processes. There is not a
single individual's opinion that is not of some consequence in making up
the grand total, and to be in this great coöperative effort is the most
stimulating thing in the world. A man standing alone may well misdoubt
his own judgment. He may mistrust his own intellectual processes; he may
even wonder if his own heart leads him right in matters of public
conduct; but if he finds his heart part of the great throb of a national
life, there can be no doubt about it. If that is his happy circumstance,
then he may know that he is part of one of the great forces of the
world.
I would not feel any exhilaration in belonging to America if I did not
feel that she was something more than a rich and powerful nation. I
should not feel proud to be in some respects and for a little while her
spokesman if I did not believe that there was something else than
physical force behind her. I believe that the glory of America is that
she is a great spiritual conception and that in the spirit of her
institutions dwells not only her distinction but her power. The one
thing that the world can not permanently resist is the moral force of
great and triumphant convictions.
THE MEANING OF THE FLAG
The following address on the Flag was delivered by President
Woodrow Wilson from the south portico of the Treasury Building,
Washington, D.C., June 14, 1915.
MR. SECRETARY, FRIENDS, AND FELLOW CITIZENS:--I know of nothing more
difficult than to render an adequate tribute to the emblem of our
nation. For those of us who have shared that nation's life and felt the
beat of its pulse it must be considered a matter of impossibility to
express the great things which that emblem embodies. I venture to say
that a great many things are said about the flag which very few people
stop to analyze. For me the flag does not express a mere body of vague
sentiment. The flag of the United States has not been created by
rhetorical sentences in declarations of independence and in bills of
rights. It has been created by the experience of a great people, and
nothing is written upon it that has not been written by their life. It
is the embodiment, not of a sentiment, but of a history, and no man can
rightly serve under that flag who has not caught some of the meaning of
that history.
Experience, ladies and gentlemen, is made by men and women. National
experience is the product of those who do the living under that flag. It
is their living that has created its significance. You do not create the
meaning of a national life by any literary exposition of it, but by the
actual daily endeavors of a great people to do the tasks of the day and
live up to the ideals of honesty and righteousness and just conduct. And
as we think of these things, our tribute is to those men who have
created this experience. Many of them are known by name to all the
world--statesmen, soldiers, merchants, masters of industry, men of
letters and of thought who have coined our hearts into action or into
words. Of these men we feel that they have shown us the way. They have
not been afraid to go before. They have known that they were speaking
the thoughts of a great people when they led that great people along the
paths of achievement. There was not a single swashbuckler among them.
They were men of sober, quiet thought, the more effective because there
was no bluster in it. They were men who thought along the lines of duty,
not along the lines of self-aggrandizement. They were men, in short, who
thought of the people whom they served and not of themselves.
But while we think of these men and do honor to them as to those who
have shown us the way, let us not forget that the real experience and
life of a nation lies with the great multitude of unknown men. It lies
with those men whose names are never in the headlines of newspapers,
those men who know the heat and pain and desperate loss of hope that
sometimes comes in the great struggle of daily life; not the men who
stand on the side and comment, not the men who merely try to interpret
the great struggle, but the men who are engaged in the struggle. They
constitute the body of the nation. This flag is the essence of their
daily endeavors. This flag does not express any more than what they are
and what they desire to be.
As I think of the life of this great nation it seems to me that we
sometimes look to the wrong places for its sources. We look to the noisy
places, where men are talking in the market place; we look to where men
are expressing their individual opinions; we look to where partisans are
expressing passions: instead of trying to attune our ears to that
voiceless mass of men who merely go about their daily tasks, try to be
honorable, try to serve the people they love, try to live worthy of the
great communities to which they belong. These are the breath of the
nation's nostrils; these are the sinews of its might.
How can any man presume to interpret the emblem of the United States,
the emblem of what we would fain be among the family of nations, and
find it incumbent upon us to be in the daily round of routine duty? This
is Flag Day, but that only means that it is a day when we are to recall
the things which we should do every day of our lives. There are no days
of special patriotism. There are no days when we should be more
patriotic than on other days. We celebrate the Fourth of July merely
because the great enterprise of liberty was started on the fourth of
July in America, but the great enterprise of liberty was not begun in
America. It is illustrated by the blood of thousands of martyrs who
lived and died before the great experiment on this side of the water.
The Fourth of July merely marks the day when we consecrated ourselves
as a nation to this high thing which we pretend to serve. The benefit of
a day like this is merely in turning away from the things that distract
us, turning away from the things that touch us personally and absorb our
interest in the hours of daily work. We remind ourselves of those things
that are greater than we are, of those principles by which we believe
our hearts to be elevated, of the more difficult things that we must
undertake in these days of perplexity when a man's judgment is safest
only when it follows the line of principle.
I am solemnized in the presence of such a day. I would not undertake to
speak your thoughts. You must interpret them for me. But I do feel that
back, not only of every public official, but of every man and woman of
the United States, there marches that great host which has brought us to
the present day; the host that has never forgotten the vision which it
saw at the birth of the nation; the host which always responds to the
dictates of humanity and of liberty; the host that will always
constitute the strength and the great body of friends of every man who
does his duty to the United States.
I am sorry that you do not wear a little flag of the Union every day
instead of some days. I can only ask you, if you lose the physical
emblem, to be sure that you wear it in your heart, and the heart of
America shall interpret the heart of the world.
MAKERS OF THE FLAG
The following address was delivered by the Honorable Franklin K.
Lane, Secretary of the Interior, before the officers and employees
of this Department, about 5,000 in number, at the Inner Court,
Patent Office Building, June 14, 1914.
This morning, as I passed into the Land Office, The Flag dropped me a
most cordial salutation, and from its rippling folds I heard it say:
"Good morning, Mr. Flag Maker."
"I beg your pardon, Old Glory," I said, "aren't you mistaken? I am not
the president of the United States, nor a member of Congress, nor even a
general in the army. I am only a government clerk."
"I greet you again, Mr. Flag Maker," replied the gay voice, "I know you
well. You are the man who worked in the swelter of yesterday
straightening out the tangle of that farmer's homestead in Idaho, or
perhaps you found the mistake in that Indian contract in Oklahoma, or
helped to clear that patent for the hopeful inventor in New York, or
pushed the opening of that new ditch in Colorado, or made that mine in
Illinois more safe, or brought relief to the old soldier in Wyoming. No
matter; whichever one of these beneficent individuals you may happen to
be, I give you greeting, Mr. Flag Maker."
I was about to pass on, when The Flag stopped me with these words:
"Yesterday the president spoke a word that made happier the future of
ten millions peons in Mexico; but that act looms no larger on the flag
than the struggle which the boy in Georgia is making to win the Corn
Club prize this summer.
"Yesterday the Congress spoke a word which will open the door of Alaska;
but a mother in Michigan worked from sunrise until far into the night,
to give her boy an education. She, too, is making the flag.
"Yesterday we made a new law to prevent financial panics, and yesterday,
maybe, a school teacher in Ohio taught his first letters to a boy who
will one day write a song that will give cheer to the millions of our
race. We are all making the flag."
"But," I said impatiently, "these people were only working."
Then came a great shout from The Flag:
"THE WORK that we do is the making of the flag.
"I am not the flag; not at all. I am but its shadow.
"I am whatever you make me, nothing more.
"I am your belief in yourself, your dream of what a people may become.
"I live a changing life, a life of moods and passions, of heartbreaks
and tired muscles.
"Sometimes I am strong with pride, when men do an honest work, fitting
the rails together truly.
"Sometimes I droop, for then purpose has gone from me, and cynically I
play the coward.
"Sometimes I am loud, garish and full of that ego that blasts judgment.
"But always I am all that you hope to be, and have the courage to try
for.
"I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and ennobling hope.
"I am the day's work of the weakest man, and the largest dream of the
most daring.
"I am the Constitution and the courts, statutes and the statute makers,
soldier and dreadnaught, drayman and street sweep, cook, counselor, and
clerk.
"I am the battle of yesterday, and the mistake of to-morrow.
"I am the mystery of the men who do without knowing why.
"I am the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned purpose of resolution.
"I am no more than what you believe me to be and I am all that you
believe I can be.
"I am what you make me, nothing more.
"I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of
yourself, the pictured suggestion of that big thing which makes this
Nation. My stars and my stripes are your dream and your labors. They are
bright with cheer, brilliant with courage, firm with faith, because you
have made them so out of your hearts. For you are the makers of the flag
and it is well that you glory in the making."
THE FLAG OF THE UNION FOREVER
Speech of General Fitzhugh Lee at a dinner given by the Friendly
Sons of St. Patrick and the Hibernian Society of Philadelphia, at
the city of Philadelphia, September 17, 1887. The occasion of the
dinner was the one hundredth anniversary of the adoption of the
Constitution of the United States. General Lee, then governor of
Virginia, was the guest of Governor Beaver at the dinner. The
Chairman, Hon. Andrew G. Curtin [Pennsylvania's war governor], in
introducing General Lee said: "We have here to-day a gentleman whom
I am glad to call my friend, though during the war he was in
dangerous and unpleasant proximity to me. He once threatened the
capital of this great state. I did not wish him to come in, and was
very glad when he went away. He was then my enemy and I was his.
But, thank God, that is past; and in the enjoyment of the rights
and interests common to all as American citizens, I am his friend
and he is my friend. I introduce to you, Governor Fitzhugh Lee."
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN OF THE HIBERNIAN SOCIETY:--I am very glad,
indeed, to have the honor of being present in this society once more; as
it was my good fortune to enjoy a most pleasant visit here and an
acquaintance with the members of your society last year. My engagements
were such to-day that I could not get here earlier; and just as I was
coming in Governor Beaver was making his excuses because, as he said, he
had to go to pick up a visitor whom he was to escort to the
entertainment to be given this evening at the Academy of Music. I am the
visitor whom Governor Beaver is looking for. He could not capture me
during the war, but he has captured me now. I am a Virginian and used to
ride a pretty fast horse, and he could not get close enough to me.
By the way, you have all heard of "George Washington and his little
hatchet." The other day I heard a story that was a little variation upon
the original, and I am going to take up your time for a minute by
repeating it to you.
It was to this effect: Old Mr. Washington and Mrs. Washington, the
parents of George, found on one occasion that their supply of soap for
the use of the family at Westmoreland had been exhausted, and so they
decided to make some family soap. They made the necessary arrangements
and gave the requisite instructions to the family servant. After an hour
or so the servant returned and reported to them that he could not make
that soap. "Why not," he was asked, "haven't you all the materials?"
"Yes," he replied, "but there is something wrong." The old folks
proceeded to investigate, and they found they had actually got the ashes
of the little cherry tree that George had cut down with his hatchet, and
there was no lye in it.
Now, I assure you, there is no "lie" in what I say to you this
afternoon, and that is, that I thank God for the sun of the Union which,
once obscured, is now again in the full stage of its glory; and that its
light is shining over Virginia as well as over the rest of this country.
We have had our differences. I do not see, upon reading history, how
they could well have been avoided, because they resulted from different
constructions of the Constitution, which was the helm of the ship of the
republic. Virginia construed it one way. Pennsylvania construed it in
another, and they could not settle their differences; so they went to
war, and Pennsylvania, I think, probably got a little the best of it.
The sword, at any rate, settled the controversy. But that is behind us.
We have now a great and glorious future in front of us, and it is
Virginia's duty to do all that she can to promote the honor and glory of
this country. We fought to the best of our ability for four years; and
it would be a great mistake to assume that you could bring men from
their cabins, from their plows, from their houses, and from their
families to make them fight as they fought in that contest unless they
were fighting for a belief. Those men believed that they had the right
construction of the Constitution, and that a state that voluntarily
entered the Union could voluntarily withdraw from it. They did not fight
for Confederate money. It was not worth ten cents a yard. They did not
fight for Confederate rations--you would have had to curtail the demands
of your appetite to make it correspond with the size and quality of
those rations. They fought for what they thought was a proper
construction of the Constitution.
They were defeated. They acknowledged their defeat. They came back to
their father's house, and there they are going to stay. But if we are to
continue prosperous, if this country, stretching from the gulf to the
lakes and from ocean to ocean, is to be mindful of its own best
interests, in the future, we will have to make concessions and
compliances, we will have to bear with each other and to respect each
other's opinions. Then we will find that that harmony will be secured
which is as necessary for the welfare of states, as it is for the
welfare of individuals.
I have become acquainted with Governor Beaver--I met him in Richmond.
You could not make me fight him now. If I had known him before the war,
perhaps we would not have got at it. If all the Governors had known each
other, and if all the people of different sections had been known to
each other, or had been thrown together in business or social
communication, the fact would have been recognized at the outset, as it
is to-day, that there are just as good men in Maine as there are in
Texas, and just as good men in Texas as there are in Maine. Human nature
is everywhere the same; and when intestine strifes occur, we will
doubtless always be able by a conservative, pacific course to pass
smoothly over the rugged, rocky edges, and the old Ship of State will be
brought into a safe, commodious, Constitutional harbor with the flag of
the Union flying over her, and there it will remain.
FROM WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS
The appeal for a perpetual union and obedience to established law,
the warning against the evils of partisan politics and against the
dangers of entangling foreign alliances made by Washington in this
immortal address were never more important than at the present
time. They will become more important for each succeeding
generation. Let those who would know America's mission make a
careful study of this the greatest of state papers.
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now
dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of
your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your
peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty
which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that from
different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken,
many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this
truth, as this is the point in your political fortress against which the
batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and
actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of
infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of
your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that
you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it;
accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of
your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with
jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion
that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon
the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our
country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link
together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by
birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to
concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you
in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of
patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.
With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners,
habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and
triumphed together. The independence and liberty you possess are the
work of joint councils and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings,
and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to
your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more
immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds
the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the
union of the whole.
The _North_, in an unrestrained intercourse with the _South_, protected
by the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of
the latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial
enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The
_South_, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the same agency of the
_North_, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning
partly into its own channels the seamen of the _North_, it finds its
particular navigation invigorated; and while it contributes in different
ways to nourish and increase the general mass of the national
navigation, it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength to
which itself is unequally adapted. The _East_, in a like intercourse
with the _West_, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of
interior communications by land and water will more and more find, a
valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad or
manufactures at home. The _West_ derives from the _East_ supplies
requisite to its growth and comfort, and what is perhaps of still
greater consequence, it must of necessity owe the _secure_ enjoyment of
indispensable _outlets_ for its own productions to the weight,
influence, and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the
Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as _one
nation_. Any other tenure by which the _West_ can hold this essential
advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength or from an
apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, must be
intrinsically precarious.
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and
particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find
in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater
resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less
frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations, and what is of
inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those
broils and wars between themselves which so frequently afflict
neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which
their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which
opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate
and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those
overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government,
are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as
particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that
your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and
that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the
other.
These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and
virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the union as a primary
object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government
can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To listen to
mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope
that a proper organization of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of
governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford a happy issue
to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With
such powerful and obvious motives to union affecting all parts of our
country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its
impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism
of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.
* * * * *
To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government for the whole
is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be
an adequate substitute. They must inevitably experience the infractions
and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced.
Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first
essay by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated
than your former for an intimate union and for the efficacious
management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of
our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation
and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the
distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing
within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to
your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance
with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the
fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems
is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of
government. But the constitution which at any time exists till changed
by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly
obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the
people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual
to obey the established government.
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and
associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design
to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and
action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this
fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize
faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the
place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a
small but artful and enterprising minority of the community, and,
according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the
public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous
projects of faction rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome
plans, digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now
and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and
things to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and
unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and
to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards
the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
* * * * *
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and
harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct. And can it
be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a
free, enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation to give to
mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided
by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course
of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any
temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it?
Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a
nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by
every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered
impossible by its vices?
In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that
permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and
passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place
of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. The
nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual
fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to
its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its
duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes
each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight
causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or
trifling occasions of dispute occur.
Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.
The nation prompted by ill will and resentment sometimes impels to war
the government contrary to the best calculations of policy. The
government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts
through passion what reason would reject. At other times it makes the
animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility, instigated
by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace
often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim.
So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces
a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the
illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common
interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other,
betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the
latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to
concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which
is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions by
unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by
exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the
parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to
ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the
favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their
own country without odium, sometimes even with popularity, gilding with
the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable
deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good the
base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments
are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent
patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic
factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion,
to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small
or weak toward a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the
satellite of the latter. Against the insidious wiles of foreign
influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of
a free people ought to be _constantly_ awake, since history and
experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes
of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be
impartial, else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be
avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one
foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they
actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even
second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist
the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious,
while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the
people to surrender their interests.
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in
extending our commercial relations to have with them as little
_political_ connection as possible. So far as we have already formed
engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us
stop.
Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very
remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies,
the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence,
therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial
ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary
combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a
different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient
government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury
from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause
the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously
respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making
acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation;
when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice,
shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own
to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that
of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of
European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?
WASHINGTON
Address by John W. Daniel, lawyer, statesman, United States senator
from Virginia, delivered in the hall of the House of
Representatives, Washington, D. C., at the dedication of the
Washington National Monument, February 21, 1885, Mr. Daniel being
then a member of the House from Virginia. He was introduced by
Senator George F. Edmunds, of Vermont, president pro tempore of the
Senate, who occupied the speaker's chair, and presided at the
dedicatory exercises.
MR. PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, SENATORS, REPRESENTATIVES, JUDGES,
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND MY COUNTRYMEN:--Alone in its grandeur stands forth the
character of Washington in history; alone like some peak that has no
fellow in the mountain range of greatness.
"Washington," says Guizot, "Washington did the two greatest things which
in politics it is permitted to man to attempt. He maintained by peace
the independence of his country, which he had conquered by war. He
founded a free government in the name of principles of order and by
re-establishing their sway."
Washington did indeed do these things. But he did more. Out of
disconnected fragments he molded a whole and made it a country. He
achieved his country's independence by the sword. He maintained that
independence by peace as by war. He finally established both his country
and its freedom in an enduring frame of constitutional government,
fashioned to make Liberty and Union one and inseparable. These four
things together constitute the unexampled achievement of Washington.
The world has ratified the profound remark of Fisher Ames, that "he
changed mankind's ideas of political greatness." It has approved the
opinion of Edward Everett, that he was "the greatest of good men and the
best of great men." It has felt for him, with Erskine, "an awful
reverence." It has attested the declaration of Brougham, that "he was
the greatest man of his own or of any age." It is matter of fact to-day,
as when General Hamilton, announcing his death to the army, said, "The
voice of praise would in vain endeavor to exalt a name unrivaled in the
lists of true glory." America still proclaims him, as did Colonel Henry
Lee, on the floor of the House of Representatives, the man "first in
war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." And
from beyond the sea the voice of Alfieri, breathing the soul of all
lands and peoples, still pronounces the blessing, "Happy are you who
have for the sublime and permanent basis of your glory the love of
country demonstrated by deeds."
Ye who have unrolled the scrolls that tell the tale of the rise and fall
of nations, before whose eyes has moved the panorama of man's struggles,
achievements, and progression, find you anywhere the story of one whose
life work is more than a fragment of that which in his life is set
before you? Conquerors, who have stretched your scepters over boundless
territories; founders of empire, who have held your dominions in reign
of law; reformers, who have cried aloud in the wilderness of oppression;
teachers, who have striven with reason to cast down false doctrine,
heresy and schism; statesmen, whose brains have throbbed with mighty
plans for the amelioration of human society; scar-crowned Vikings of the
sea, illustrious heroes of the land, who have borne the standards of
siege and battle--come forth in bright array from your glorious
fanes--and would ye be measured by the measure of his stature? Behold
you not in him a more illustrious and more venerable presence?
Statesman, Soldier, Patriot, Sage, Reformer of Creeds, Teacher of Truth
and Justice, Achiever and Preserver of Liberty--the First of
Men--Founder and Savior of his Country, Father of his People--this is
he, solitary and unapproachable in his grandeur. Oh! felicitous
Providence that gave to America OUR WASHINGTON!
High soars into the sky to-day--higher than the Pyramids or the dome of
St. Paul's or St. Peter's--the loftiest and most imposing structure that
man has ever reared--high soars into the sky to where
"Earth highest yearns to meet a star,"
the monument which "We the people of the United States" have erected to
his memory. It is a fitting monument, more fitting than any statue. For
his image could only display him in some one phase of his varied
character--as the Commander, the Statesman, the Planter of Mount Vernon,
or the Chief Magistrate of his Country. So art has fitly typified his
exalted life in yon plain lofty shaft. Such is his greatness, that only
by a symbol could it be represented. As Justice must be blind in order
to be whole in contemplation, so History must be silent, that by this
mighty sign she may unfold the amplitude of her story.
In 1657, while yet "a Cromwell filled the Stuarts' throne," there came
to Virginia with a party of Carlists who had rebelled against him John
Washington, of Yorkshire, England, who became a magistrate and member of
the House of Burgesses, and distinguished himself in Indian warfare as
the first colonel of his family on this side of the water. He was the
nephew of that Sir Henry Washington who had led the forlorn hope of
Prince Rupert at Bristol in 1643, and who, with a starving and mutinous
garrison, had defended Worcester in 1649, answering all calls for
surrender that he "awaited His Majesty's commands."
And his progenitors had for centuries, running back to the conquest,
been men of mark and fair renown. Pride and modesty of individuality
alike forbid the seeking from any source of a borrowed lustre, and the
Washingtons were never studious or pretentious of ancestral dignities.
But "we are quotations from our ancestors," says the philosopher of
Concord--and who will say that in the loyalty to conscience and to
principle, and to the right of self-determination of what is principle,
that the Washingtons have ever shown, whether as loyalist or rebel, was
not the germ of that deathless devotion to liberty and country which
soon discarded all ancient forms in the mighty stroke for independence?
One hundred and fifty-three years ago, on the banks of the Potomac, in
the county of Westmoreland, on a spot marked now only by a memorial
stone, of the blood of the people whom I have faintly described, fourth
in descent from the Colonel John Washington whom I have named, there
was born a son to Augustine and Mary Washington. And not many miles
above his birthplace is the dwelling where he lived, and near which he
now lies buried.
Borne upon the bosom of that river which here mirrors Capitol dome and
monumental shaft in its seaward flow, the river itself seems to reverse
its current and bear us silently into the past. Scarce has the vista of
the city faded from our gaze when we behold on the woodland height that
swells above the waters--amidst walks and groves and gardens--the white
porch of that old colonial plantation home which has become the shrine
of many a pilgrimage. Contrasting it as there it stands to-day with the
marble halls which we have left behind us, we realize the truth of
Emerson: "The atmosphere of moral sentiment is a region of grandeur
which reduces all material magnificence to toys, yet opens to every
wretch that has reason the doors of the Universe."
The quaint old wooden mansion, with the stately but simple old-fashioned
mahogany furniture, real and ungarnished; the swords and relics of
campaigns and scenes familiar to every schoolboy now; the key of the
Bastile hanging in the hall incased in glass, calling to mind Tom
Paine's happy expression, "That the principles of the American
Revolution opened the Bastile is not to be doubted, therefore the key
comes to the right place;" the black velvet coat worn when the farewell
address to the Army was made; the rooms all in nicety of preparation as
if expectant of the coming host--we move among these memorials of days
and men long vanished--we stand under the great trees and watch the
solemn river, in its never-ceasing flow, we gaze upon the simple tomb
whose silence is unbroken save by the low murmur of the waters or the
wild bird's note, and we are enveloped in an atmosphere of moral
grandeur which no pageantry of moving men nor splendid pile can
generate. Nightly on the plain of Marathon--the Greeks have the
tradition--there may yet be heard the neighing of chargers and the
rushing shadows of spectral war. In the spell that broods over the
sacred groves of Vernon, Patriotism, Honor, Courage, Justice, Virtue,
Truth seem bodied forth, the only imperishable realities of man's being.
There emerges from the shades the figure of a youth over whose cradle
had hovered no star of destiny, nor dandled a royal crown--an ingenious
youth, and one who in his early days gave auguries of great powers. The
boy whose strong arm could fling a stone across the Rappahannock; whose
strong will could tame the most fiery horse; whose just spirit made him
the umpire of his fellows; whose obedient heart bowed to a mother's
yearning for her son and laid down the midshipman's warrant in the
British Navy which answered his first ambitious dream; the student
transcribing mathematical problems, accounts, and business forms, or
listening to the soldiers and seamen of vessels in the river as they
tell of "hair-breadth 'scapes by flood and field;" the early moralist in
his thirteenth year compiling matured "Rules for behavior and
conversation;" the surveyor of sixteen, exploring the wilderness for
Lord Fairfax, sleeping on the ground, climbing mountains, swimming
rivers, killing and cooking his own game, noting in his diary soils,
minerals, and locations, and making maps which are models of nice and
accurate draughtsmanship; the incipient soldier, studying tactics under
Adjutant Muse, and taking lessons in broadsword fence from the old
soldier of fortune, Jacob Van Braam; the major and adjutant-general of
the Virginia frontier forces at nineteen:--we seem to see him yet as
here he stood, a model of manly beauty in his youthful prime, a man in
all that makes a man ere manhood's years have been fulfilled, standing
on the threshold of a grand career, "hearing his days before him and the
trumpet of his life."
The scene changes. Out into the world of stern adventure he passes,
taking as naturally to the field and the frontier as the eagle to the
air. At the age of twenty-one he is riding from Williamsburg to the
French post at Venango, in Western Pennsylvania, on a mission for
Governor Dinwiddie, which requires "courage to cope with savages and
sagacity to negotiate with white men"--on that mission which Edward
Everett recognizes as "the first movement of a military nature which
resulted in the establishment of American Independence." At twenty-two
he has fleshed his maiden sword, has heard the bullets whistle, and
found "something charming in the sound;" and soon he is colonel of the
Virginia regiment in the unfortunate affair at Fort Necessity, and is
compelled to retreat after losing a sixth of his command. He quits the
service on a point of military etiquette and honor, but at twenty-three
he reappears as volunteer aide by the side of Braddock in the
ill-starred expedition against Fort Duquesne, and is the only mounted
officer unscathed in the disaster, escaping with four bullets through
his garments, and after having two horses shot under him.
The prophetic eye of Samuel Davies has now pointed him out as "that
heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I can but hope Providence has
hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to
his country;" and soon the prophecy is fulfilled. The same year he is in
command of the Virginia frontier forces. Arduous conflicts of varied
fortunes are ere long ended, and on the 25th of November, 1759, he
marches into the reduced fortress of Fort Duquesne--where Pittsburgh now
stands, and the Titans of Industry wage the eternal war of Toil--marches
in with the advanced guard of his troops, and plants the British flag
over its smoking ruins.
That self-same year Wolfe, another young and brilliant soldier of
Britain, has scaled and triumphed on the Heights of Abraham--his flame
of valor quenched as it lit the blaze of victory; Canada surrenders; the
Seven Years' War is done; the French power in America is broken, and the
vast region west of the Alleghenies, from the lakes to the Ohio,
embracing its valley and tributary streams, is under the scepter of King
George. America has been made whole to the English-speaking race, to
become in time the greater Britain.
Thus, building wiser than he knew, Washington had taken no small part in
cherishing the seed of a nascent nation.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON]
Mount Vernon welcomes back the soldier of twenty-seven, who has become a
name. Domestic felicity spreads its charms around him with the
"agreeable partner" whom he has taken to his bosom, and he dreams of
"more happiness than he has experienced in the wide and bustling world."
Already, ere his sword had found its scabbard, the people of Frederick
county had made him their member of the House of Burgesses. And the
quiet years roll by as the planter, merchant, and representative
superintends his plantation, ships his crops, posts his books, keeps his
diary, chases the fox for amusement, or rides over to Annapolis and
leads the dance at the Maryland capital--alternating between these
private pursuits and serving his people as member of the Legislature and
justice of the county court.
But ere long this happy life is broken. The air is electric with the
currents of revolution. England has launched forth on the fatal policy
of taxing her colonies without their consent. The spirit of liberty and
resistance is aroused. He is loth to part with the Mother Land, which he
still calls "home." But she turns a deaf ear to reason. The first
Colonial Congress is called. He is a delegate, and rides to Philadelphia
with Henry and Pendleton. The blow at Lexington is struck. The people
rush to arms. The sons of the Cavaliers spring to the side of the sons
of the Pilgrims. "Unhappy it is," he says, "that a brother's sword has
been sheathed in a brother's breast, and that the once happy plains of
America are to be either drenched in blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad
alternative! But how can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?" He
becomes Commander-in-Chief of the American forces. After seven years'
war he is the deliverer of his country. The old Confederation passes
away. The Constitution is established. He is twice chosen President, and
will not consent longer to serve.
Once again Mount Vernon's grateful shades receive him, and there--the
world-crowned Hero now--he becomes again the simple citizen, wishing for
his fellow men "to see the whole world in peace and its inhabitants one
band of brothers, striving who could contribute most to the happiness of
mankind"--without a wish for himself, but "to live and die an honest man
on his farm." A speck of war spots the sky. John Adams, now president,
calls him forth as lieutenant-general and commander-in-chief to lead
America once more. But the cloud vanishes. Peace reigns. The lark sings
at Heaven's gate in the fair morn of the new nation. Serene, contented,
yet in the strength of manhood, though on the verge of threescore years
and ten, he looks forth--the quiet farmer from his pleasant fields, the
loving patriarch from the bowers of home--looks forth and sees the work
of his hands established in a free and happy people. Suddenly comes the
mortal stroke with severe cold. The agony is soon over. He feels his own
dying pulse--the hand relaxes--he murmurs, "It is well;" and Washington
is no more.
Washington, the friend of Liberty, is no more!
The solemn cry filled the universe. Amidst the tears of his people, the
bowed heads of kings, and the lamentations of the nations, they laid him
there to rest upon the banks of the river whose murmurs were his
boyhood's music--that river which, rising in mountain fastnesses amongst
the grandest works of nature and reflecting in its course the proudest
works of man, is a symbol of his history, which in its ceaseless and
ever-widening flow is a symbol of his eternal fame.
No sum could now be made of Washington's character that did not exhaust
language of its tributes and repeat virtues by all her names. No sum
could be made of his achievements that did not unfold the history of his
country and its institutions--the history of his age and its
progress--the history of man and his destiny to be free. But whether
character or achievement be regarded, the riches before us only expose
the poverty of praise. So clear was he in his great office that no ideal
of the Leader or the Ruler can be formed that does not shrink by the
side of the reality. And so has he impressed himself upon the minds of
men, that no man can justly aspire to be the chief of a great free
people who does not adopt his principles and emulate his example. We
look with amazement on such eccentric characters as Alexander, Cæsar,
Cromwell, Frederick, and Napoleon; but when the serene face of
Washington rises before us mankind instinctively exclaims, "This is the
Man for the nations to trust and reverence and for heroes and rulers to
copy."
Disinterested patriot, he would receive no pay for his military
services. Refusing gifts, he was glad to guide the benefaction of a
grateful state to educate the children of his fallen braves in the
institution at Lexington which yet bears his name. Without any of the
blemishes that mark the tyrant, he appealed so loftily to the virtuous
elements in man that he almost created the qualities of which his
country needed the exercise; and yet he was so magnanimous and
forbearing to the weaknesses of others, that he often obliterated the
vices of which he feared the consequence. But his virtue was more than
this. It was of that daring, intrepid kind that, seizing principle with
a giant's grasp, assumes responsibility at any hazard, suffers sacrifice
without pretense of martyrdom, bears calumny without reply, imposes
superior will and understanding on all around it, capitulates to no
unworthy triumph, but must carry all things at the point of clear and
blameless conscience. Scorning all manner of meanness and cowardice, his
bursts of wrath at their exhibition heighten our admiration for those
noble passions which were kindled by the inspirations and exigencies of
virtue.
Great in action as by the council board, the finest horseman and
knightliest figure of his time, he seemed designed by nature to lead in
those bold strokes which needs must come when the battle lies with a
single man--those critical moments of the campaign or the strife when,
if the mind hesitates or a nerve flinches, all is lost. We can never
forget the passage of the Delaware that black December night, amidst
shrieking winds and great upheaving blocks of ice which would have
petrified a leader of less hardy mold, and then the fell swoop at
Trenton. We behold him as when at Monmouth he turns back the retreating
lines, and galloping his white charger along the ranks until he falls,
leaps on his Arabian bay, and shouts to his men: "Stand fast, my boys,
the Southern troops are coming to support you!" And we hear Lafayette
exclaim, "Never did I behold so superb a man!" We see him again at
Princeton dashing through a storm of shot to rally the wavering troops;
he reins his horse between the contending lines, and cries: "Will you
leave your general to the foe?" then bolts into the thickest fray.
Colonel Fitzgerald, his aid, drops his reins and pulls his hat down over
his eyes that he may not see his chieftain fall, when, through the smoke
he reappears waving his hat, cheering on his men, and shouting: "Away,
dear Colonel, and bring up the troops; the day is ours." "Coeur de
Lion" might have doffed his plume to such a chief, for a great knight
was he, who met his foes full tilt in the shock of battle and hurled
them down with an arm whose sword flamed with righteous indignation.
As children pore over the pictures in their books where they can read
the words annexed to them, so we linger with tingling blood by such
inspiring scenes, while little do we reck of those dark hours when the
aching head pondered the problems of a country's fate. And yet there is
a greater theater in which Washington appears, although not so often has
its curtain been uplifted.
For it was as a statesman that Washington was greatest. Not in the sense
that Hamilton and Jefferson, Adams and Madison were statesmen; but in a
larger sense. Men may marshal armies who cannot drill divisions. Men may
marshal nations in storm and travail who have not the accomplishments of
their cabinet ministers. Not so versed as they was he in the details of
political science. And yet as he studied tactics when he anticipated
war, so he studied politics when he saw his civil role approaching,
reading the history and examining the principles of ancient and modern
confederacies, and making notes of their virtues, defects, and methods
of operation.
His pen did not possess the facile play and classic grace of their pens,
but his vigorous eloquence had the clear ring of our mother tongue. I
will not say that he was so astute, so quick, so inventive as the one or
another of them--that his mind was characterized by the vivacity of wit,
the rich colorings of fancy, or daring flights of imagination. But with
him thought and action like well-trained coursers kept abreast in the
chariot race, guided by an eye that never quailed, reined by a hand that
never trembled. He had a more infallible discrimination of circumstances
and men than any of his contemporaries. He weighed facts in a juster
scale, with larger equity, and firmer equanimity. He best applied to
them the lessons of experience. With greater ascendancy of character he
held men to their appointed tasks; with more inspiring virtue he
commanded more implicit confidence. He bore a truer divining-rod, and
through a wilderness of contention he alone was the unerring Pathfinder
of the People. There can, indeed, be no right conception of Washington
that does not accord him a great and extraordinary genius. I will not
say he could have produced a play of Shakespeare, or a poem of Milton,
handled with Kant the tangled skein of metaphysics, probed the secrecies
of mind and matter with Bacon, constructed a railroad or an engine like
Stephenson, wooed the electric spark from heaven to earth with Franklin,
or walked with Newton the pathways of the spheres. But if his genius
were of a different order, it was of as rare and high an order. It dealt
with man in the concrete, with his vast concerns of business stretching
over a continent and projected into the ages, with his seething
passions; with his marvelous exertions of mind, body, and spirit to be
free. He knew the materials he dealt with by intuitive perception of the
heart of man, by experience and observation of his aspirations and his
powers, by reflection upon his complex relations, rights, and duties as
a social being. He knew just where, between men and states, to erect the
monumental mark to divide just reverence for authority from just
resistance to its abuse. A poet of social facts, he interpreted by his
deeds the harmonies of justice.
First to perceive, and swift to point out, the defects in the Articles
of Confederation, they became manifest to all long before victory
crowned the warfare conducted under them. Charged by them with the
public defense, Congress could not put a soldier in the field; and
charged with defraying expenses, it could not levy a dollar of imposts
or taxes. It could, indeed, borrow money with the assent of nine states
of the thirteen, but what mockery of finance was that, when the borrower
could not command any resource of payment.
The states had indeed put but a scepter of straw in the legislative hand
of the Confederation--what wonder that it soon wore a crown of thorns!
The paper currency ere long dissolved to nothingness; for four days the
army was without food, and whole regiments drifted from the ranks of our
hard-pressed defenders. "I see," said Washington, "one head gradually
changing into thirteen; I see one army gradually branching into
thirteen, which, instead of looking up to Congress as the supreme
controlling power, are considering themselves as dependent upon their
respective states." While yet his sword could not slumber, his busy pen
was warning the statesmen of the country that unless Congress were
invested with adequate powers, or should assume them as matter of right,
we should become but thirteen states, pursuing local interests, until
annihilated in a general crash--the cause would be lost--and the fable
of the bundle of sticks applied to us.
In rapid succession his notes of alarm and invocations for aid to Union
followed each other to the leading men of the states, North and South.
Turning to his own state, and appealing to George Mason, "Where," he
exclaimed, "where are our men of abilities? Why do they not come forth
and save the country?" He compared the affairs of this great continent
to the mechanism of a clock, of which each state was putting its own
small part in order, but neglecting the great wheel, or spring, which
was to put the whole in motion. He summoned Jefferson, Wythe, and
Pendleton to his assistance, telling them that the present temper of
the states was friendly to lasting union, that the moment should be
improved and might never return, and that "after gloriously and
successfully contending against the usurpation of Britain we may fall a
prey to our own folly and disputes."
How keen the prophet's ken, that through the smoke of war discerned the
coming evil; how diligent the patriot's hand, that amidst awful
responsibilities reached futureward to avert it! By almost a miracle the
weak Confederation, "a barrel without a hoop," was held together
perforce of outside pressure; and soon America was free.